The Black Box

Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.

M.P. SHIEL

THE BLACK BOX

First published by The Vanguard Press, New York, 1930

First UK edition: The Richards Press Ltd., London, 1931

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2025
Version date: 2025-03-02

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

ABOUT THIS BOOK

"The Black Box" is a novel of mystery and science fiction. The story is centered around a mysterious black box and the adventures of the characters who come into contact with it. The novel delves into themes of exploration, human curiosity, and the unknown, all wrapped up in an engaging narrative.

As the characters in the story encounter the black box, they must navigate the challenges and dangers it presents, leading to a thrilling and thought-provoking journey. The novel blends elements of suspense, adventure, and speculative fiction, making it a captivating read for fans of the genre.

Chapter I. Death
Chapter II. Dreadful Death
Chapter III. Seekers
Chapter IV. The Three Villages
Chapter V. The Urn
Chapter VI. Banshee
Chapter VII. The Doctor
Chapter VIII. "Murder Not a Sin"
Chapter IX. Public Analyst
Chapter X. The Body
Chapter XI. A Glove
Chapter XII. Foot-Prints
Chapter XIII. In the Grave
Chapter XIV. Poison
Chapter XV. The Black Box
Chapter XVI. The Old House
Chapter XVII. Night-Interview
Chapter XVIII. The Fugitive Pursued
Chapter XIX. Afternoon Breezes
Chapter XX. The Dead
Chapter XXI. The Black Box
Chapter XXII. The Box Obstinate
Chapter XXIII. Warrant of Arrest
Chapter XXIV. The Truth-Seekers
Chapter XXV. Gunfire
Chapter XXVI. The Vanished Hand
Chapter XXVII. Outcome
Chapter XXVIII. Catastrophe
Chapter XXIX. Night-Time
Chapter XXX. Day-Time

Chapter I
DEATH

NO sound was in Clonnach New House when Sir Patrick O'Connor raised his forehead from resting on a table—nine nights this was before that death-night—with trouble in the light of his eyes, something of affright, too, in his way of eyeing round him: and he said then to himself "I will send for Lady Capable..."

This meant Miss Foy O'Connor (his niece, who was so nicknamed), she being then at Mondello (a bathing-nook among mountains outside Palermo).

The "season" being now over, she was seated in the only group of browned legs now left on the beach, taking bagno di sole, or sun-bath, in front of the bathing-palace that is there in the sea-surf, when the baronet's note (marked "Urgent") was borne down to her by a mulatto man-servant, who, in coming, muttered "I like her like that," beholding the bowl of gold, aglow under that sun, that her skull was: through which gush of glory her forehead, conquering like sunrise, rose.

On reading the note, her eyes sidled with their usual look of listening, as when a woman listens, still, to a mouse moving somewhere, and muses on it; and presently she said in her quick-whispering way (something chronic was wrong with her vocal chords): "I shall have to go"—showing the note to her hostess.

"Heaven knows what of," Miss O'Connor said: "I haven't been with him for a year".

For, as the house-party group were strolling up to the house, a telegram was handed her which had the effect of blanching her cheek a moment: and this speeded her going.

As to whence it came, what it contained, she mentioned nothing to anyone; but, with that swiftness of decision which distinguished her, the instant she was within she was at the telephone, speaking to E.N.I.T. at Palermo, negotiating for two seats in that evening's sea-plane; and now was on the way to a drawing-room to announce her departure to Lord Phipps-Thralby, her betrothed, when he came seeking her, an open cablegram in his hand, saying to her "Greet the Earl of Wortley".

Which meant that his uncle, the earl, was dead; also that he, the next earl, would now be urgent for wedlock.

But her joy was calm. "And I with hardly time to curtsey," she said—"going tonight."

And, with that spinning expedition of Napoleon's marches into which her stillness could spin, her preparations for departure were forced through, she herself helping her maid.

But this maid, a pale spinster, named Marie Moran, who was afflicted with tic of the fifth nerve, was attacked in the thick of the packing. She made the moan: "Ah, Mademoiselle, it is come on... please, please..."

Upon which Foy O'Connor paused in arranging her drawings, tossed a cigarette off her, stood with her forearms folded together, one forefinger separated from the three fingers like scissors opened, and muttered "One, Two, Three: gone in three minutes."

Whereupon, with that readiness with which the Subconscious, long controlled, accepts suggestions, the maid's pain faded away; the preparations were recommenced; and presently her friends were accompanying Miss O'Connor to one of those planes daily now to be seen seated on the waves in the Palermo scalo, or dock: in the belly of which duck, borne low over a waste of ocean-flood flowing ever away and away, she journeyed through the night, to arrive at Genoa early on the Thursday.

Since she had a liking for flying, her Marie Moran now expected her to take train for Paris, in order to fly thence—from Le Bourget to Croydon, this being the quickest way to England; but she did not do this—ran diagonally over France in a motor-car which her own masterful hands charioted, to Boulogne; at Boulogne remained a day; then took boat for Folkestone.

On the Tuesday night, September 5th, she arrived in Gloucestershire; but when she got out of the 8.57 train from London at Adversane station (two miles from Clonnach New House), it was only to be told that her uncle was no more.

This moved her unemotional soul: the Rev. George Walpole, who told it her, saw the corners of her mouth pushdown a moment, as when a child is ripe to cry.

Chapter II
DREADFUL DEATH

THE baronet that day had risen from bed after one (he kept wake at night, his luncheon being generally his breakfast): had risen unwell—was never very well, and at present a presentiment of some impending destiny depressed him; nor was this rendered less heavy when, at his breakfast, a tumbler in his hand cracked betwixt hand and lip, spilling the liquid in it—this from of old being a token of mourning among the sons of that home.

When he stood up he strolled to stand before an easel on which lay an oil-painting of his head by Foy, his niece—a narrow face, a tuft of "imperial," an eye-glass, bags of elderliness coming under the eyes—an "aristocrat," a "clubman," "world"-versed, "world"-staled—all was stated there in the painting; and, after contemplating it some time, he muttered "We do not make ourselves: sons of High God; yet we have endless pain..."

He shivered: for the day was chill, and though there was a fire there, he kept well away from it, having some kind of dislike for fire—such a dislike, that, though he liked tobacco, and would sometimes smell a cigar, he never smoked.

Turning next to a servant who was there with a duster, and regarding her through his eye-glass, he asked her "Well, are we cheering up?"

She, a sweet little quean of seventeen, named Hester Hayes, the spray of her hair inflamed at its edges, making a halo of reddishness round her head, said "Thank you, Sir... And thank you for thinking of me, Sir, in your will."

And Monk, somewhat embarrassed, answered "The way it would be a comfort to her."

The baronet then paced awhile, venting sighs; and presently asked "How is Martha Parnell?"

Devlin Cummings Monk answered "It's a little better the creature would be. Dr. White-Deighton came to her at mid-day."

Then again the master paced and sighed, while Monk's eyes behind their spectacles eyed him with an underlooking speculation—pale eyes, die-away, reflective, he lolling within a doorway in a swallow-tail coat that looked too skimpy for his bulk's thickness—a forehead lofty and bald, an upper-lip hanging flat, a double-chin—a priest's visage, to which a skull-cap would have been becoming.

And presently again the master spoke: "Do not let that doctor come near me, whatever happens; do not let him."

Monk answered "You are telling me that these three days. Why wouldn't I be forced to let him?"

Then silence. Till presently again the master spoke: "Well, come now; I will show you."

He then took a walking-stick, and, with Monk, walked away westward and somewhat southward through a "New Garden," through coverts, to a place half-a-mile off called "The Old House" and "The Fishponds," where a noising of falling waters always is; and, entering a boat at landing-steps which lie north-east of The Old House (which stands in a lake), they rowed westward under a graveyard-wall at their right to some steps, up which they stepped into the graveyard; then walked back east a little to a tree near the graveyard-wall and the water: and beneath that sycamore-tree the baronet's stick now made in the ground a mark—which had the shape of a grave.

But there was a grave-digger there who noted them, though they did not notice him.

On returning to Clonnach New House, O'Connor was conversing an hour with a lawyer; after which he was up in his laboratory, seated before a certain "black box," which he had unlocked; and he was reading papers which the box contained, when a footman named O'Loughlin entered, passing through: upon which he called to O'Loughlin, and handed him several lots of the contents of the box to toss upon the laboratory-fire.

After this he appears to have remained solitary in the laboratory till near five o'clock, when Cummings Monk took him up tea—to find him now in distress, overcome by a heart-attack.

He was then led to his bedroom (next the laboratory, at the house-back); and, contrary to his desire, Dr. Ivor White-Deighton was called.

He had long known the doctor—whose influence indeed it was that had kept him more or less addicted to a scientific mode of life, White-Deighton being a person whose words, presence, were of a tremendous impressiveness: so that some of his utterances, while he was still an alumnus, had brusquely refracted the intellect of the baronet, sixteen years his senior: as when he had said "Our birthplace is a world, and the finding out what kind of place our birthplace is is the natural occupation of every man, and bird, and worm; nor do birds, worms, babies, fail to occupy themselves on world-research; but men are preoccupied with the strains and stresses of a crazy society, named 'modern', but designed by ancient minds of a childish type: and the uneasy feeling of futility and misfit that haunts ordinary people springs from this, that, not being occupied on science, they are occupied on trifles foreign to the proper business of a living being. This, then, is the law of our sickness"... And other such utterances of the high-browed alumnus had side-tracked the baronet from club-life and City-business. The baronet revered the doctor: it was partly his doing that the doctor had been coaxed to come from being Senior Surgeon at the Gloucester Royal Infirmary to "The Three Villages" round Clonnach.

But there had been a split: the doctor had taken offence at something said in respect of Miss Foy O'Connor; had ceased to visit at Clonnach of an evening.

That day of death, while the doctor stood by the sick-bed, the sick said to him "Is it down in the dark this time, Doctor?"

To which the doctor answered "No, no." And presently the sick: "It is all a magic shadow-show, Doctor."

And the sick: "Lady Capable arrives tonight by the 8.57: she will rescue me... But, anyway, you can't make me drink, you can send—"

Now he went down by a back-stair with Cummings Monk to look at one Martha Parnell, a parlour-maid; then went away; sent medicine.

Little light from the skies, no wind, a mist of drizzling, everything still: until a little clock in the sick-room stopped its ticking to clink once at seven-thirty, a clink heard by Cummings Monk seated near the sick, who, asleep, did not hear, nor hear the feet of the herald of death even then speeding through the vastness of the dark to treat with him.

Stillness in that dimness; only the tail of an elkhound, named "Scout," lying beside the bed, might smite the floor: but two minutes after that clock's clink there came a tapping on a door of the room; and when Monk moved to it he was confronted there by a man breathless and blanched, who panted at him "The Banshee! out at The Old House" —and was gone.

Now count twelve minutes: and now all the household was aware of a sound of awe outside—a noising of waters that had pounced upon the house, and now was brawling all round about it.

And while all stood in awe at it, Monk, soaked to his thighs, burst into the servants'-hall, blurting out the words: "Flood-gates opened! Call up the village!"—these "floodgates" being two oaken pairs at The Fishponds, opening opposite ways upon a "lock" of brickwork, fitting together at mitre-posts when closed, and operated by crank-handles that actuate trains of wheels with teeth.

The alarm uttered, Monk then darted up the back-stair, to run to one of the baronet's chamber-doors: at which he hearkened, then entered.

The baronet was asleep, his right cheek touched by the greenish sheen shed from the globe of a veilleuse on a night-table—greenish mixed with crimson from a claret-glass standing beside the medicine; a glow from the grate, too, impregnating the gloom of the room.

Till someone tapped at a door of the room, and a face looked in—one Mary Skerrett's, a housemaid, who sent at Monk the announcement, "Water's coming into Martha's room!" (Martha Parnell, who was ill).

As he stepped toward her, she, with a keen inquisitiveness, sent at him the whisper, "Did you hear the Banshee?"

And silent they listened. Yes, the night lamented. This was not that maundering of the waters below, but a voice of sorrow and sobbing more poignant yet. Pity and terror was the name of it, so that the face took on a posture of crying at the awe of that night-pain. It seemed to proceed from the north, and Monk went walking slow that way, with the steps of a man entranced, to the laboratory-door. But within twenty seconds it ended.

Monk now stood with his brow on a door-jamb, which he wetted with a sweat that had broken out on him.

Below they found nurses, an Ursuline from the nunnery at Up Rumford, with women-servants (all the men being out on the business of the flood), struggling in water to get out the sick girl, who lay delirious—the bedstead being too big to go readily through the doorway.

But with Monk's help something was presently effected; and they were now bearing bedstead and maid away, when a bang like a bomb's, followed by a racket of crackling, arrested them: for a mass of ash-trunks which had lain felled westward had come afloat, had bombarded a door, had broken in to the back-stair; and it was only by slamming every room-door in rapid succession that the whole below-stairs was rescued from being flooded.

In the end the maid's bedstead was won out to the foot of the front-stair among the antlers, armour, and racks of fowling-pieces of the inner hall, which was quickly transformed into a sickroom: whereupon the breathless labourers remained there to contemplate one anothers' pallor, and to drop random remarks.

One of the nurses, who had been roused out of bed, remarked "Well, this night!... What could have opened the flood-gates?"

And Mary Skerrett at random: "We are after hearing the Banshee! me and Mr. Monk."

"But those tree-trunks must have woke him, unless—Has he taken any of the medicine?"

"And Miss O'Connor due in an hour"—from the housekeeper at random—"wetness and sickness for her."

And from Mary Skerrett at random to the Ursuline: "If it wasn't sick he was, the poor man, he'd be out there under the cedar now, with Scout: all hours you'll see him out there by himself."

At which all started, for all were "jumpy," their nerves touchy in a mood of dirges and dooms, alert to start into fits of alarm.

At this point Hester Hayes came in, all soaked, panting, from the front; and, even as the housekeeper began to say to her "Where in the world have you—?," O'Loughlin, all soaked, ran in, panting out in advance "It's all right, we've got the gates shut, seven of us—"

But he stopped, cut short by an outcry that shouted through the house, remote, but audible enough to all: and the suddenness of that bawl, its shortness, its appalling meaning of a soul in extremis hoarsely appealing for human succour, struck awe to all their hearts, all understanding that it was out of the baronet's travail that that bawl had sounded...

"Run for the doctor!" Miss Joyce called out, and O'Loughlin, running toward the front, called "Doctor was at The Fishponds! I'll try that way, you try his house..." while Monk, followed by Miss Joyce and others, was running upstairs, to run along a front-to-back corridor to a cross-corridor at the back; and thence into the baronet's bed-chamber.

He was then alive. By the veilleuse and the fire-shine they could descry the wildness of his eyes stretched wide in affright. He was sitting up a little. And he was pointing wildly "at the medicine-bottle" on the night-table, as all who saw him said.

Monk was most agitated. In that half-dark his arm happened to hit the medicine-bottle, the bottle fell, and, since no cork was then in it, a little of the liquid spilled. But Miss Joyce, who saw, rescued the bottle, set it upright.

She was still there when, ten minutes later, the doctor came and contemplated that dead.

But the next day when the bottle was sought, it could nowhere be found, nor the cork.

Chapter III
SEEKERS

ON that evening when Miss Agnes Heygate started for Gloucestershire, people had gone all gossipy, "swarmy" in the way of bees, as to O'Connor's death: and so it was, that, as she stepped into her train at Paddington, the journalist Gilfillan started from his seat to greet her with "O, happy day!"

She said to him "Where, then, are you off to? O'Connor case? Yes! that's it! I am on it, too," sitting now with him: he a Yankee, active in gait, a forehead flung open like the gates of dawn, a swathe of hair sweeping across it—oftenest to be seen in shirt-sleeves in his office, his feet on a table, a cigar cocked aloft at his dog-teeth, seeming unoccupied, but busy, a fellow who had the theory that his stomach was weak, pretending to be a cynic and sick of things, yet was ever cheery, tolerating a sorry world; and The Telegraph had confidence in the vigour of those eyes of Glinten Gilfillan. He was not quite so tall as she, who was tallish-looking in her nurse's cloak, a certain rush and whirl attaching to her when her bonnet's back-veil followed her, fluttering in the breeze of her business-career in the world: modernissima! yet a chasteness of ladyship was essential in her in a rather Victorian tone, perhaps: at a time when the skirt of almost every woman in Europe was short, hers was long, she doing what she pleased, not what other people pleased.

So they were off together—for Gloucestershire, Gilfillan thought; but she deflected him when she said "I am going home for the night; you come—will like that lot of mine—house that Jack built, that one."

"Left fortnight ago!" she told him in that rapid vernacular of hers, which often skipped such little impediments to speech as "the," "a"—"or would have, if they hadn't held me by main force. Matron now—nursing-home—Harley-Street way, up among the stars! Due there next Tuesday really, but this morning got letter from Goss and Bonner—'Come and see us'—O'Connor case! so tore myself up, and went. Bonner's red fist banged table: 'Get at bottom of this thing, Miss Heygate—do yourself and us good'; thinks I can see through stone-wall! doesn't know this blundering headpiece as I do... So here she is!"

Gilfillan's eyebrows went cynic-wry. "Straws that we are on the little old Whirlwind... How, then, were you whirled originally against Messrs. Goss & Bonner?"

"Wasn't it that letter I wrote to The Times about the Rylands business? Then they wrote to me."

"No—no time even to wire them! I had just posted a letter home this morning when I got Goss & Bonner's summons"—a letter which, in fact, was being read aloud at about this hour by her sister Margot in the Heygate farm-house, the stream of that reading impeded at many a reef where laughter fretted; till Margot read out "Two in the Charlotte Ward cut their cables last night," and then Mrs. Heygate shook her pensive prettiness of face to remark "No, frankly, I don't like the way Agnes writes now... 'cut their cables'... hard to write of death in that light way."

On which Mr. Heygate, stepping big and brown about in leggings, turned upon her to say "Agnes? Hard? What are you talking about, my dear? Why, that girl's heart is like a harp hung up—hums at every puff that comes. What are you talking about? Agnes? Hard?"

Mrs. Heygate threw an eye at him to reply "Oh, yes, we all know that you are bound to take her part."

"Oh, but come, Mother," remarked Marston Heygate— the eldest, the farmer-son, who could coax forty-four bushels for forty from that Oxfordshire loam—"if she were to shed tears over every death that comes her way, she'd melt. Agnes isn't hard. Only, she likes the everyday phrase: that's her way."

And now Dagmar Heygate: "Nurses do get callous, no good denying it"—youngest of "the Heygate-girls," she, a talented being, just then fresh from broadcasting "Songs at the Piano" from 51 T; and Margot Heygate, "cleverest" of the lot, added "There's no doubt, they are rather heartless: lose their hearts to the doctors, so haven't any left"—this Margot now doing Comparative Anatomy at University College, a winner of honour after honour—lightly done! for no one ever saw her studying.

But now Wesley, the last born, still doing Intermediate in Science at King's, put in his oar, with "That's all my eye, Margot; nurses are the world's mothers, not always blubbing, but always serving: and Agnes is the Saint Agnes among them. This of 'cables' being 'cut' is her little way of referring to her heart-strings."

"Keep cool, gentlemen," Mrs. Heygate now said, sewing pensively away; then: "Go on with the letter, Margot."

And Margot under the lamp read on—sheet after sheet of flying writing, rich in interests and ardours, laughters mixed with heart-smart, sighings of St. Helena, lightnesses of Ariel, like drizzles of April days that sprinkle their shimmerings amid flushes of sunshine... "Regular stand-up fight between him and me; caught him nicely on the landing, escaping, delirious—goods-porter, powerful fellow—gave me one fair on the jaw; but it's dogged that does it, I got him under my knees in the end... Then to bed near three 'with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job'... Little street-arab named Billy Reid; when I asked him 'What's the plural of mackerel?' he answered 'Erring is'. You should have seen Agnes jeer and sneer! I said 'Erring, is it? that plural strikes me as singular and— erring'. He showed his fist, saying 'I gi' you one'; I said 'That again will strike me as singular, but what you'll get back will strike in the plural'..." So it lasted some time, the reading, and was hardly finished when Agnes herself, in the centre of three glad dogs and of Gilfillan, popped in, vomiting upon them like Etna volumes of her health and strength, crying "Look at them all! open-mouthed... Here she is on the O'Connor case, with a young man after her"—she having stopped at Reading, and so to Oxford, to Littlemore, and home.

And now, while the tongues broke loose, Gilfillan, looking rather a whipper-snapper beside Marston Heygate and "Dad," was presented, presently pretended to eat some "supper," pretended to be "born tired," but was saying heartily enough within himself "here is good old English stock"; then let himself be led by Agnes down through coppice to the river, to be rowed by her sculls to Iffley Mill and the Lock, and back up, under the moon, talking of O'Connor, of themselves anon; as when he remarked in his slightly Yankee song of voice: "You hit it in predicting that I'd like my brothers-and-sisters-in-law, brilliant crowd that you are. Same old eyes in all the lot... strange... resembling the blue of those jets of flame that shoot up in the fire some nights... I shall always remember this: my oasis in the wilderness—here with you."

To which Agnes answered "You rash thing! uttering rashness with your lips. Let me tell you something: Agnes is being drawn—voices calling—or say scarlet-fever coming, and it will come rough: why, I'd whirl you away like a straw. But I doubt if it will be you: 'eat more beef, then come again."

"Ah, beef," Gilfillan sighed; "say extract of. Whatever gods may be saw fit, in their gentle way, to make me a 'patient'."

"Oh, well, never say die, here we go round the mulberry-tree, 'time-and-tide happeneth', and Agnes' tongue was never made to say 'No'... But, talking of O'Connor, what about that doctor—what's his name? White-Deighton. O'Loughlin, the footman, says that O'Connor said 'That doctor will do for me'; and, if there was poison, White-Deighton should have known! Saw the body... Yet gave a death-certificate for 'ruptured compensation'. And he's no common G.P.—scientist, it seems... Perhaps the man wasn't poisoned at all."

"For me, yes"—from Gilfillan, with conviction—"the facts point... But what had that flood to do with it? Something, I guess. What hand opened those flood-gates? Tricky question. White-Deighton was there to open 'em... On the lot, I am surprised that they let him be buried without post-mortem: but in country-places things are slacker."

Gilfillan pondered: "I doubt it now: yesterday in the standing Joint Committee the Chief Constable argued against calling-in Scotland Yard, and the voting was equally divided. The Home Office may still move, though. Personally, I am fairly certain of a murder. What about that butler-man—Devlin Monk? Gets £7,000 by the will. The gods make me a butler."

Agnes added "And that between-maid, Hester Hayes,— she gets £300... But where's she? Doesn't turn up to take all that—a 'tweenie-maid. Is Hester Hayes alive? Seen that night-fall going toward that 'Old House': never seen again. She was 'in trouble'"—resting now on the oars, peering with shivering lids at the moon.

"Venture to say: red nose-tip going about... But what did she go to The Old House for that night? That was two nights after the flood-night, death-night, Banshee-night... Fancy Banshee coming over to Gloucestershire!—frightens me rather, this whole business: Agnes can stand most things, except ghosts and mice. That family has the habit of hearing—but what exactly is the Banshee? a fairy? an owl? I don't know: something in the mood of death and doom impending, and moonlight moping over lonesome tombs. And it was congruous to Sir Patrick O'Connor, all that: the man must have been what they call 'fey'; makes new will; summons niece from Sicily; shows Monk where he wishes to be buried—as that grave-digger has told; foreknew something. Suppose he meant to poison himself, and did? For he had poisons. You know that?"

"Yes"—the boat now at home under willow-branches which shadow the river-brink there—"I know a man who knew him. O'Connor was a messer in research... Was it in the papers, then, that he had poisons?"

Agnes answered "Yes, I saw a letter from some lady—one of the gossips who bob up whenever public is fluttered—telling that a coster's barrow once ran into O'Connor, as he was going out of a shop in Kingsway to his motor-car, and O'Connor struck coster with a strap—passionate Irish."

But Gilfillan, seeing no connexion, asked "How does strapping the coster show that he had poisons?"

And Agnes: "No, I forgot, you wouldn't see at once... Well, the lady didn't herself witness strapping, and didn't say who had told her, but mentioned that she is a publisher's-traveller, so this connected her with books; and, as the strap might have been a book-strap, and it happened in Kingsway, I thought that it might be someone at bookseller Smith's in Kingsway who had given her the anecdote. In which case Sir Patrick was known to Kingsway Smith's—went there to get his books. But why there, when his town-house is away in Bayswater, and Smith's are everywhere?—had some reason for choosing Kingsway Smith's. Now, as he strapped the coster on coming 'out' of the shop, and, as he hardly undid his parcel of books to get the strap, he had another strap, or straps; and that would explain why he came to Kingsway Smith's—because he had to strap other parcels than books in Kingsway: that's why he didn't have books sent home, for, as he had to bring one strap, he might as well bring a second for books, the first being for something that he liked to carry himself—apparatus, say. So, after reading the anecdote, I stepped in at Griffith's, the scientific place near to Kingsway Smith's, and they said yes, Sir Patrick had often gone there; and among the books on their counter was one written by him, full of coloured pictures of vacuum-tubes. So I knew then that my man had chemicals... Oh, I say, it must be late: moon looks droopified—fair lady! Tomorrow at this hour we'll be down there in the burning. Do we go as professional enemies or friends, we two?"

"Friends, please," Gilfillan said, stepping out; "let's make a bargain: I to tell you everything I drop to, and you me. If I get at the truth first, you to give me a kiss as laurel; if you do, I to give you a kiss."

"Get thee behind me!" Agnes exclaimed, now moving up through the wood: "none o' your Yankee salesmanship with me. When Agnes of the Oxfordshire Heygates does such a thing it will be an event in county-history. I did it once, and it went off like a gun—was only eleven: it will be more silent next time; the cosmos will stand hushed to watch."

Chapter IV
THE THREE VILLAGES

THE next gloaming, on getting to Stroud, Agnes clapped glad hands—hills, hills henceforth; and in the train's run along the Severn tears of relationship touched her lids, for she was quick to fraternity with the world, and soon at home in it: so that within some days Lizzie Davis, with whom she lodged in Adversane, was saying of her to Tom Price, a five-acre kitchen-gardener, Lizzie's brother, "Her be a tidy thing" (i.e., nice), "and pious! they can hear her singing hymns right down at Hewett's of a morning."

"Well, now!"—Price stood like a barrel stuck on legs, looking down a whitish fan-beard from under whitish eyebrows.

"And her be very humoursome with her quips and dimples, her'll set anybody into fits o' laughing. And you'll hear her come out with homely rhymes: 'this is the house that Jack built', her'll say; and her'll say 'rockabye, baby, in the tree-tops'." Her eye shot out twinkles of fun sideways—a woman upon whom her Maker had put a bulge on the wrong side, for her back side, which should bulge, was flat, and her belly, which should be flat, bulged: so that the one could be mistaken for the other.

And now from Tom in a low voice: "Be that a fact that her be one of those? So they'd have it to say, that her be here on Squire's matter. But they be such a gossiping news-hunting lot, you never can tell."

Now they were routed by a mob of cows that trotted down, until Lizzie came back to say "Aye, that's a fact; and I asked her if there'd be an exhumation, and her said yes, her fancied so."

"Well, now! I said er'd come to that. How'd they like to be dug up? Us doesn't want these London cousins here with their bullsquitter. Who was to poison him?—kind, generous, to everybody. Oh, er's gone to evn, Lizzie."

And Lizzie: "I think er has. It was Harriet Evans laid him out, put him in his socks, and her says er looked beautiful."

"There was some remarkably funny things about'n, all the same," Price now said: "what made him shout out like that, and point at his medicine?"

"Well, er be funny. But us'll never get to the bottom of it, everybody has a different tale to tell, they be such a gossiping newshunting lot."

"There er comes, your lady!" Tom Price now whispered —"and young Mr. Walpole wi'n."

"Well, now! the gossiping newshunting lot"—as Agnes stepped up the hill-road from the south with a fascinating lad in flannels, gracile, who had "Dark-Blue" stamped on him; and he had to stop when she stopped to say "This is the brother, then? Yes! this is 'Tom'! How are you, Sir? You look rosy enough: it's the cheeks of the apples in the cider, bravo!" She shook hands; and, as she went on up, swinging her bonnet, remarked to the young man:

"Yes, that's understood," Alan Walpole said, "that's—er—understood. They say you already know The Three Villages by rote."

"By heart, say! Yes, they're all named Price, Davis or Evans; all cousins; four Tom Prices... Oh, this place! these hills! And these winds! with a Christian love I love 'em, and when they smite me on the right cheek I turn to them the other also. And that Clonnach—how I envy Miss O'Connor looking out upon that cedar, hearing it sing the things it sings."

Alan Walpole bent to say in confidence "When your hair's fanned back like that you look a seraph"—for it was with some aspect of beatitude that she held her brow up to those mountain-breezes, which bared her temples, expressed the shape of her front, kept her skirts fluttering away in a flurry of fun; and her eyes had that slight raising of the underlid by means of which the Greek sculptors gave a seraph-expression to their Heres, Athenes.

She answered "Can't help being a seraph here in heaven... But you go far and fast, Sir, in mentioning it."

And he: "We are hardly strangers. Lots of us fellows in Oxford know your father—"

Now he whispered quick "That's Dr. White-Deighton"—as a man rather big, yet frail-looking somehow, his face lily-pale where it was not rose-pink in its frame of inky hairiness, stepped down out of the lane, or "private road," on their left, into which they were about to turn westward.

And now Walpole: "Well, what's your sentence on him? The girls say he's frightfully handsome."

"Mmm—yesish," Agnes muttered: "mild eyes, eh? dreamy, violet; sea of beard tossing—I should just like to get at it with a scissors; and a brow there—round-built... Been here nineteen months, has he?"

"About that: and pretty popular here—wonderful cures, they say—gives away money... and quite revered among the clever people: writes in 'Nature'—about sub-atoms, not to mention huge things like bacteria."

"Yes! 'her mouth she could not ope but out there dropped a trope'. Awfully jolly it must be to be your brother—somehow related to you."

"But the friendship cooled: White-Deighton no longer went to visit Sir Patrick o' nights. Why?"

"Well, there may have been something—a flirtation?—between White-Deighton and Foy: and O'Connor warned White-Deighton off. For which reason White-Deighton poisoned O'Connor in the medicine—don't you know. Great joke."

"Oh, well, not nice people... They are pretty indignant here, I can tell you, at this idea of exhumation. Dad goes red in the... What do you say about it? Exhumation or not?"

Agnes shrugged. "Not sure yet: sure that there ought to be—will be, if I can bring it about... But the lady, Miss Foy, was she, then, fond of the doctor?"

"No, not likely"—with a quick way he had of wetting his lips—"just fun, Dad thinks. One night—Dad was there—Foy pushed something scribbled on a card toward White-Deighton, and O'Connor, who saw, remarked 'That young lady is engaged, Doctor:' upon which White-Deighton flushed in his Jovian way, and would stay no longer."

"And when Ah, here comes Winter"—as a heavy police-officer, with red veinlets in his cheeks, appeared at a turn of the lane, conversing with Gilfillan, who, with silk-wrappings protecting his neck, stepped beside the policeman like a stick beside a beam.

Chapter V
THE URN

AS they met, Agnes laughed in her glad way, saying "This, Glinten, is the rector's Alan. How do you do, Inspector Winter? Has the introduction been a success?"

"Oh, yes"—curtly from Gilfillan, touched toward jealousy of that damask flush, those vital eyes, of Alan; till Agnes remarked "Mr. Walpole is now with me to present me to the lady... Is she nice? I saw her this morning on a sorrel up on The Chase—couldn't tell at first whether the thing was boy or girl! Then I saw—morning musk-rose... So are you given the run of the place?"

"Yes, she wasn't bad"—from Gilfillan: "walked about with us—living thing, pretty wretch, Prince Charming disguised in a pretence of petticoats—has a look of listening out of the eye-corner to a mouse moving—smokes six puffs of a fresh cigarette every minute—something wrong with the voice, talks in a whisper—husky stuff—but distinct enough, and quick! tongue flies—like somebody's whom I know. And sharp! There are some urns for geraniums at the back, and one of them has a bit cracked off, no bigger than—"

"No, to you, Sir, she said it," Inspector Winter put in with some shortness of breath; on which Agnes, her eyes resting on his being, which suggested official papers in pigeon-holes, neat routines, said to herself "You won't live long, and will make a heavy coffin"; while Gilfillan said to him "No, to you, Winter—but what does it matter?"

"But"—Agnes' eyelashes levelled themselves on his face—"did you form any idea as to how the urn had got broken...? No, don't twirl it! It's all gone" an outcry of laughter when Winter's hand rose to touch a mustache which had vanished; and she added "Oh, I worship them! Why did you shave?"

"Ah, now, don't say that it was the wife who wanted it off, after living it down seventeen years!"

The Inspector lifted shy eyes to say in protest "You seem to have got it right, Miss, the 'seventeen'—"

"Can't help," Agnes answered: "been seven days in The Three Villages. Don't I know what ornaments are on your mantelpiece? I know that you shaved last Wednesday— No, don't twirl it!"

"Yes. Weren't you up at The Fishponds all by yourself on the Wednesday? Then you decided, went off on your byke for Marchstow, and had it off you at Child's; then bought a razor at Bailey's for—future use"—her gaze now fixed on him with a certain alertness, her lids flickering as when one peers at the sun.

"Easily understood, considering that the father of the vanished girl—what's her name, Inspector?"

"That's it. Her father came that afternoon from St. Arvens, wanting to drop across a man who had been seen with her one evening when she went home on one of her days off; and while he was about here, you took some food up to The Fishponds—sausages it was, because the following day I saw the long grease-spots on the subpoena-form that you had wrapped them in, and I saw crumbs, ginger-beer bottle, and where byke had lain in grasses; then you were off to Marchstow, for Jim Davis was in Child's when you went in to be shaved, and he knows that you bought a razor—gossiping newshunting lot that they are!"

Gilfillan said to himself "She is on the wrong track here"; while Alan Walpole said "You are a privileged person, Winter, to be so noticed—should look more charmed."

And Winter: "What the lady says is correct enough: many a time I've had a mouthful up at The Fishponds. Hardly last Wednesday though—"

"Yes, and that was Wednesday, for in the evening Mary Evans pointed you out to Hester's father, as you were pedalling home through Adversane after being shaved: he had told Mary that it was a strapping big man he wanted; but when she pointed you out he said no, didn't fancy you were the chap—"

"I should think not indeed!"—indignantly from Winter—"married man, please, Miss, with a family."

"Of course. Unfortunately, family-men are never themselves in the family-way, and, not realizing what that means, are occasionally careless of others. You, let us hope, are different... But you haven't said what you made of the broken urn at Clonnach. Of any importance? Do you think it may lead to—exhumation?"

At this all stared at her; and Winter breathed "What's that got to do with exhumation?... Oh, there'll be no exhumation now, bless you. That's all off'."

And she: "Well, we'll go on, we two... Good day, Inspector Winter. Do you know what I think of you? That you are run-down—I shouldn't eat sausages! Fruit—not meat. We must look after our little selves, and mind how we go... Goodbye, Glinten: come tomorrow for dinner"; and now, passing near, she dropped at Gilfillan's ear "Exhumation soon, I expect"; and went on with Walpole.

Chapter VI
BANSHEE

THROUGH Clonnach-gate into "The Meadows," a sort of park; and presently they were under that cedar of Agnes' love, its branches held up by chains, almost brushing the house-front—a house low, plain, not very big, facing east, "The New House"—everything at Clonnach being double, "New Garden," "Old Garden," "New House," "Old House."..

They were led under a lantern, ponderous Venetian, in a hall all panels by a man, of whom Agnes said "Cummings Monk, eh? Has £7,000 now, but still sticks to butlering"—they being now seated in a drawing-room that had a floor of porphyry, jasper, onyx, laid in patterns, the chimney-piece of pavonazzetto marble; and Walpole answered "Born thrall of the O'Connors! like 'Gurth the swineherd'."

"Hypnotism," Agnes said: "he's no more a butler by nature than he is an abbot, or you a cricketer: I can see that face over an abbot's robe. Honest face, eh? Do you think?"

"Now!" went Agnes, "did I say? I—I—don't know. I only know that abbots can be awfully naughty; and, though this one gave me a nasty glance—"

She stopped, as in, slim-built, stepped Miss Foy O'Connor, pretending to be a prince, but very female really, exhibiting between her fingers a cigarette that breathed-out a grace of reek. At the apparition of her, Agnes said to herself "Why, she is something like me!"—like in height, in a certain strength of bone in brow and chin; but more strength of bone in that perfect curving of Foy's nose, more nosiness of expression—a hint of aquilinity; and Foy's forehead was perpendicular like crags, Agnes' horizontal like cliffs; Foy's lips thicker, a meal of sweetmeat; and other differences were marked, Agnes carrying a bun of bulbs at her nape, a load of womanhood, while Foy's head was like more-than-half of an orange, her hair cut, rolling in a weir over the brow, bent inward above the eyebrows, bent inward behind under the occiput-bulge; and her eyes were wider opened, she was golden-haired, hedge-rose her colour, unlike Agnes' damask.

She came with her hand out to Alan Walpole, but no hand when Agnes was presented; and she sat on a round softness of ottoman facing their couch, saying in her whisper of winds when they winnow amid willow-whips "I saw you this morning on The Chase, looking beatified... So what do you want now?"

"Well"—from Walpole—"there is this chatter about your uncle's—er—death: so Miss Heygate wishes to question people—go about the house—that sort of thing; and I—"

"He represents a great paper, your people are nobodies. Oh, no, this is private property: you ask too much."

Foy eyed her with an eye-corner that "mused as on a mouse moving," then in that swift whispering of breaths that seemed to breathe some keen secret—shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo of showers showering—she said "The temptation may be great!"

"Now, what cant. But, then, Alan's present, that's why... I have heard about you: you are at Adversane; named Agnes; you howl hymns of a morning to be heard of men; visit sick people... There was a Saint Agnes, and you are Saint Agnes the Second. But saints are thieves when they are women."

"Oh, this is funny!"—Agnes writhed—"how vast your experience! And you only a kid."

"A she-kid that knows the she-goat's odour... Will you say to me that you are not a thief? Ha, ha, don't look scandalized, Alan: we two girls understand each other... Will you say that to me?"

"Now I have you" came from Foy; then, drawing her cigarette-end to shrivel shorter by a string's breadth, and now meditating on the cone of smoke that the mount of her lips' Etna pippled to heaven, then tossing the cigarette, just begun, off her, she said "Very well, I will make a bargain. You wish to go over the place: so give me now your word of honour as a saint that you have not already stolen anything from me, and I will then take your request into consideration."

Up to Agnes' hair a blush rushed! and at once Foy said "Ah, you see, you can't. A saint who blushes at being found out is a poor thief"—she cut a nose of disdain, taking from a gold-latten astuccio another cigarette.

"Er, if I may express my er—" Alan Walpole began to say, but Agnes, placing her hand on his, shut him up, with "It's wrong to err—leave it to her and me"; and to Foy: "I am sorry you are so down on saints and women—though why you connect idea 'saint' with me I can't understand. Want to be one, though, love 'em... Heard of Anne Askew, have you? Ha! there was a lass for you. Some ruffians stretched her on a rack, to screw out of her the names of her fellow-believers, then threw her racked upon a bed, and she wrote of it 'I was put on a bed with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job'... Was no bragger, look; but just that one little brag in a lifetime escaped her... 'with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job'... aye, the quality of her, and the clover-odours that haunted all her underclothes. Women can be pretty shiney when they are saints and heroes: I ain't like that. Still, I don't confess to being a thief: stealing is 'permanently converting'; but in a few days, if you look, you will see the little bit stuck on again, and the urn none the worse."

And now Foy's shoo-shoo: "You had no right—should have asked me. What was your object in breaking it off?"

Instead of answering, Agnes, to the others' astonishment, snatched-up a hassock at her feet, to toss it to a bang at the door before her.

And Agnes: "Forgive me: I thought I could spy an eye peeping, and wished to be sure. Monk was at the keyhole."

"Started back from the bang, and his three keys-of-office rattled... I wonder why he listens?"

Foy tossed off her a cigarette, just begun, answering "You imagine yourself smart, but probably are a mass of random fancies. The man, I suppose, knows what you are here for, and is interested, not wanting his master's body to be dug up. We none of us do, and, naturally, dislike you."

"Oh, nonsense: justice is never done. And, since there was nobody to poison him, he was not poisoned."

"He was not. It is what I say that stands"—with a downward gesture of the forefinger which meant "down, dog!," proud as Lucifer would have been, if Lucifer had been Irish.

"Oh, well"—with a flippant little lifting-up of the fingers—"Heaven help me to keep my hair on; yours is already gone. But, anyway, shouldn't you all be glad to have the thing cleared up? Can't I be allowed to question —Monk, say? I want to get at the bottom of that Banshee business: three of them heard it."

Foy drew-in, blew out, smoke, threw a cigarette off her; then, bending, striking a marqueterie table on which was a wireless set, said "I bet you can't!"

"Then"—their faces close as in quarrel—"give me permission to overrun the place, and I tell you sharp and short."

"It was that wind-wheel of the artesian well that singsongs in a wind: that was the Banshee."

And Agnes: "Ah, you see. Others can make guesses as well as you... And now we'll go: poor Mr. Walpole, you have had to take a back seat in all this she-chatter: come."

She stepped through a French window to the lawn, where, looking up, she stood listening to the cedar. When Walpole, joining her, began to say "Certainly you two ladies knock each other about with a charming—" she checked him with "Sh-h-h! hark!"; and presently, as they went on, sighed "O, rockabye, baby! What a commotion of woods going on throughout this home of music—fabulous paradise!—prolonged holidays haunted with voices, voices, rumours of Dreamyland profusely streaming, sighings dying of satiety of delight. When I become a millionaire, see if I don't buy up the whole choir of it at some wild price, to lie at rest at last in that dear little graveyard with Sir Patrick, hearing still something of the todo of music going on up above. But that will be when apples grow on an orange-tree, Agnes."

"Anyway, you can go over the whole place meantime," Walpole said: "actually in the end got the permission—though your idea and Foy's of the Banshee being a wind-wheel does seem a little—er—"

"No. I only said 'wind-wheel' to see if she wishes me to believe untruths—as she does."

"I see! It was I who was the noodle, as usual... Why, though, should she wish you to believe untruths?"

"'Dislikes' the tec, you see. But why me and not Gilfillan?... There's something about her—some strangeness—yes, elusive—it's on the tip of my tongue to give it a name... But the silly thing! I believe she is smoking all day long like that, tossing cigarettes from her: loose I call that—will undermine her without fail. I know a man who strikes matches for fun all day—mania!... Nice, though, eh? Dear me! No wonder the doctor is smitten. Even that shoo-shoo of hers, which would be the ruin of any other girl, is part of her whole, only adding another note to her charm and shilling to her riches... There will be a wedding, you will see..."

"She's engaged to the Earl of...." Now his voice went low: "the first wedding will be ours, is that so?"

And he: "Forgive me, if I seem possessed. Fact is, I am rather in a stew—there is such an awful lot of you, so many selves and changes, I seem to be kidnapped by six different sibyls."

She meditated on it, her face bent; then: "Isn't it written 'A cricketer may not marry his old aunt?' And it is written 'things mellow by keeping'."

"Then, may I lie in wait for you? And will you come often to the rectory? To tell the truth, I am rather like a fish—"

Chapter VII
THE DOCTOR

SHE remained indoors only long enough to read a note left by Gilfillan, which note she clapped over her eyes to think behind it a little; then to open an envelope come without a stamp—from the Public Analyst; then to scribble a note to her Goss & Bonner: "Convey news to B.B.C., and wire me hour (minute, if possible) when news will be broadcast"; after which she sallied out to post it; and now a tramp of five miles, up through Woodston village southwest, up beyond The Chase, to a cottage at which she wished to ask some questions; then back through drizzle when night had fallen, to reach Adversane wet and keen for the "Severn shrimps" which lay ready with her tea in her diminutive "parlour"; but not to taste them: for, as she entered, her Lizzie Davis said to her "You be very late... You heard about poor Tom Ball?"

"No, I'll go"—running upstairs to get a little bag, then back on the way she had come, all hills and dips, up the long hill of Woodston, to three cottages built under one roof, a roof which billowed like water; and she stepped into one of the three "porches" (sheets of tin bent), into a passage, to a bed in a "parlour" at the passage-end.

The little window of this was shut, and a mean lamp shed more smell than sheen: but this was quickly remedied, a grandmother and sister were instigated to action, candles lit, predigested milk, hot bottles, got into being; and now, poring close over the sick, she spoke, coaxing him: "You're too young to die, don't you, we needn't, if we swear we won't"-—breathing the health of her breath into his being; and she muttered "Blood, that's what he wants (he had haemolytic icterus), pity I didn't bring the big bag"; and now she packed off the sister-girl for a bag, with "Run hard, Martha!"; after which she knelt at the bed, her face upraised, for "the prayer of faith shall save the sick," and was so intent on this, that she did not hear wheels without, nor footsteps, till, chancing to glance, she saw that the doctor stood there, looking at her: and up she leapt.

He bowed, she bowed, changing places, he to the bed's head, she lifting toward him the little table with its candles, like an acolyte ministering; and while he was occupied with filter-paper, hamocytometer cell, blood-record card, she, standing with her fingers clasped before her, as a serving-woman waits to serve, was noting his technique; and, summing him up, she said in herself "Laboratory method... clinically experienced, too... he'll be getting to Mecca (meaning the F. R. S.)... lady's hands... sure-fingered..."

All this time no word was spoken. The grandmother stood mute in the doorway. Some drizzle blew in. The candles flickered.

Then the doctor sat in an arm-chair that lacked an arm, his palm just touching his forehead, pondering behind mild eyes that seemed to dream, still: until now the girl-sister hurried in, and to her he remarked "You arrive wet, my friend."

"Yes. So, as I had heard that you were away at Elberleigh, and, as I could make out that he needs blood, I sent the girl for my bag for a transfusion."

"I see." His pallid fingers passed soft as fancy across his pallid forehead, and repassed. "But—unassisted would you have done it?"

"So? It is usually done by experts! In America they are specialists, named 'transfusionists'... With citrated blood have you done it?"

"Compatible, then. Ha! mine, too, are IV... But, then, the prognosis here is not good. I have meditated extirpating the spleen, but the icterus is complicated by some Addison's anaemia, which is never cured by splenectomy. The anamnesis gives the icterus as inherited. For years he has been jaundiced. You see that brown-yellow of his colour. Sclera? yellow. Mucous membranes anaemic. Spleen large, consistent, extending nearly to the iliac crest and median line. There is polychromotophilia, many normoblasts, many Jolly-Howell's bodies; 55 per cent of erythrocytes exhibit granulation of Fiessinger. I wish to show that you might have lost your blood for nothing." She answered "One risks that."

His eyes dwelt on her. Then: "You understand that one does not lose much blood with impunity. One suffers."

There broke from her "Oh, not I! strong as a horse!"—laughing a little, "vain" just here.

"Well, all in the day's work," she said: "if that is the only chance of saving him, please, Doctor"—lifting the container from the bag to disinfect it, while he with a chary finger-tip smoothed the back of his hair, which was blackish like bistre, and had a longish waviness there behind, though scantier about the brow; and, after some reflection, he decided to say to her "You and I—we scientists—-are martyrs by profession: recklessly every day we throw ourselves away, dying as X-ray Christs, as Chervin died through drinking black-vomit, as Catterall inoculated himself with yellow-fever, Lola with tetanus, as Bosso died of tubercle bacillus, Garre of glanders: willingly we do this, not expecting any recompense in heaven, nor earnings from earth, our friar lives still vowed to sacrifice. For what, though, do we so suffer and die?—for the growth of truth. And for whom?—for Society, for Life: not for our 'neighbour'. The individual Tom is about as good as the individual Dick; if Dick is sick, Tom is better; and ought not to become sick, too, for Dick. This, then, is the law as to sacrifice... What I can see that men now need is a new religion— though, in truth, there cannot be a 'new', since the old are not really religious; but say (loosely) a new religion, no longer of the village, but a world-virtue, as much larger than the mental range of savages, of the ancients, of the Chinese, as Paris under a humming of aeroplanes is larger-minded than a kraal, than Jericho. And such a religion, preoccupied not with individuals, but with Society, is already founded, is being silently preached, the founder this time not being one Buddha or Christ, but the Early Church of scientists."

At this Agnes' lip stiffened a little. "Well... yes... But, you see, I was brought up in one of the village-religions, can't all at once—"

"Yes, I see, you kneel, you—'pray'," with an indicting eye aside on her: "but the New Religion, too, believes in prayer—prayer is its breath and bread. Only, it teaches that men should not (much) sit to meditate; nor should they kneel to pray: they should stand erect to experiment; and in that posture of prayer they get at God, they find the Almighty. This is a fact which in our day shouts on the ear; and now in white light men descry how wise was that saying of the old monks 'laborare est orare', 'to labour is to pray': work, labour, in the labour-atory, the workshop—this is to approach the Throne of Being with hope, this is the prayer of faith. And with a shout, as of showers of manna, the lavish answer comes, God raining upon those who so pray great authority—power to bid the winds and the waves obey, to ascend up into heaven—really, not as in the dreams of the kneeling ancients, of savages who kneel —power to heal all manner of sicknesses—all finally, I think, if we persist in so labouring and wrestling in prayer. This, then, is the law as to prayer."

Agnes' lip was still stiffer; and she said "As it happens, I am such a villager... and, meantime—Oh, I beg—the young man is sinking..."

But before any touch of blood had blemished that marble of her arm, his finger-tips slapped it a little, and he rejected it, saying "No, I will be the donor."

"No, no," he gently answered, "the New Religion does not exclude kindness to Dick, only excludes whatever is bad for Society, such as unreason, village-morality complexes and hypnotisms, any headlong self-sacrifice by a better life for a worse. You must not think that I am about to give my blood for the patient: I would not; I give it for you, since you insisted upon giving yours."

He smiled. "That is doubtful; and, since it is my whim" —both still active while they talked, his coat off, his arm bared: and presently he had the wide-bore needle in, she at his feet rotating the container to defibrinate the blood, which flowed in by gravity and by a suction-bulb on a second tube in the container's bung; and when he, parting with heart's blood, went pallid, pallider, like whey, she thought in distress "Oh, I ought to have done it myself! he is not strong"; and she said "Doctor, you are pale."

Sharply when it was done he sat back in the arm-chair, markedly shocked, and alone she set about the injecting, taking out the bung with the U-rod now thick with fibrin, and putting into the container a tube connected with the two-way tap of a syringe which ended in a cannula; and now into the recipient's vein, dissected under local anaesthesia, she pumped, the blood coming filtered through a bulb full of glass-wool; but the job was not finished when a sigh left the doctor, and a sigh left her, "Oh, he's gone," as his forehead dropped.

Now panic had her, for she had an impression that he was frail, "delicate"—perhaps at the heart; and at once she was whirled into this fresh interest, working now with a certain venom of haste—summoned the girl—soon had the needle in her own arm, soon had the cannula in his, and was pumping some of her happy sap into him.

Only when a flush touched his cheek did she breathe; and she was withdrawing the cannula when those violets that were his eyes opened, saw.

Up he leapt with some wildness of eye, saying "Come—your arm"; and, binding it, said "Yes, I—fainted: weak of me. Nevertheless, I am privileged, for now we two are blood-bound."

Then, as she bound his, he said "Your clothes are damp, I see: you must come home"—and would not listen when she wished to stay a little: so in the shelter of his runabout two-seater she drove through rain, talking of St. Barts', at which he, too, had been; until, near Adversane, she suddenly said "I want to talk to you about the O'Connor death—the business on which I am here. May I call—?"

Chapter VIII
"MURDER NOT A SIN"

UP the "private road" westward, past Clonnach gate, and on north-westward, to a lane on the right, whence one could spy an Old House tower, and the church tower, southward; and so down to the doctor's house within its bower behind a triple hedge—the hedge of the lane, a hedge of laurel behind this, and, behind this, a hedge of fir-trees—the house white, low, with low slate-roofs, with trellises over which rioted rose, vine, ivy; and there was a yellowish old bit stuck-on, its windows stone-shafted: here being "the dispensary," and an old dispenser, who lived to peer through a little trap-door in a window: within which old bit Agnes was received in a room that was the laboratory of a physiologist who was also a physicist, a physicist first of all, its work-bench a tangle of apparatus. He asked her pardon for taking her there, on account of experiments which he thrice left her to pry into, she seated on an old easy-chair near a dynamo which still expatiated in a mania of soliloquy, her eyes resting on him with a certain expressionlessness, a deadness of gaze, where he sat on a trevet opposite her, having-on a hollands overall.

She asked if he vivisected, and he smiled in his mild way, saying "I have a 'licence'—of course; but do not like it. I consider that vivisection should be done on men."

This made her flinch; her left eyelid lowered at him a little. "On men... I never heard that said."

"Which shows," he answered, "that that New Religion of which we spoke last night is still in its infancy."

"At present," he answered, "the men used are in hospitals, prisons, asylums. But, to me, this is improper, since the experiments are without the men's knowledge, nor is any social heroism evoked. The men I mean would be volunteers; and I should advertise tomorrow, saying 'Come! be vivisected: Science is all, your life nothing'; but then"—he smiled—"I should be hanged by the villagers before I could accomplish much."

"Dozens, I think, would; and presently thousands, millions: for men are noble when their nobleness has been evoked. If they volunteer to die in wars, they will when their death is genuinely for the welfare of Society."

Steadily Agnes gazed, no expression in her gaze, into those violet eyes that teemed with a dreamy meaning, with an intelligence whose gentle strength seemed to see through thicknesses of media, she seeking to read what mood of mind really lay behind their gentle musing. "Gentle" was so much his name, that one said "gentle Jesus!"—his voice so soft, low, cultured to such a gentle graveness! his fingers big and strong, but fair to see, paled, ladylike; a gentle dignity of crown-princes sitting on that lily brow, which seemed to bend in condescension to men: it was difficult to imagine him killing a cat; yet apparently he did not mind killing a man! and she said within herself "Oh, you handsome devil of a man," adding frankly aloud, with a shake of her face, "You don't mind killing anybody?"

"Why, yes"—he smiled—"I mind. But I mind less killing a man for the good of men than killing a dog for the good of men."

He added "I know that to savages and other villagers this would sound improper: for to such people there is an essential difference between dogs and men, the reason being that they know little about dogs, little about men, little about anything; but when we get to know more—to know, for instance, that there are greater differences between some species of apes than between any ape and any man—then we get to smile at—Forgive—," rushing away now to peer at a ray shot from a mirror upon a scale, to glance at his watch, to move a switch charily a very, very little, to stick a plug into a resistance-box, and hurry back to her.

And now she: "Oh, I'm afraid I'm a villager"—her eyes musing on him. "It is said in the villages that men alone have immortal souls; that the death of a son of man is so momentous a matter, that voices, omens, from The Beyond may come to announce it; at Caesar's death 'the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the streets'; at Jesus Christ's 'the sun was darkened'; at Buddha's 'the gods descended'; at Sir Patrick O'Connor's the Banshee was heard—by three persons... By the way, you did not hear it, Doctor?"

"Well, yes, I think I was then walking home from a deathbed at Woodston, taking the short-cut over The Tump. There I came upon a scene of flood, and of men making efforts to stem it, one of whom told me that messengers were seeking me, since Sir Patrick was 'dying'—he was then, in fact, dead; and it was with some difficulty that I made my way to him: the place was all water."

She dashed down some shorthand in a little notebook, saying "You had seen him earlier—about five: was he then very bad?"

"Was always very bad," the doctor answered: "he had some lesion of the mitral, with hypertrophy of the right ventricle 'in compensation', and blowing sounds at the apex-beat. But there was nothing new that afternoon, I think; and I was so little concerned about him, that I stopped to see a servant-girl of his before sending him medicine—did not even direct the sick girl's nurses to see to him."

"No?... It might have been well, if you had, for when Monk pressed him to take the medicine, he refused—as Monk says. And in the afternoon he had said to O'Loughlin, the footman, 'that doctor will do for me'... Can you account for this?"

His fingers, charily touching as it were rose-petals, passed across his forehead; or, charily touching, moved over the back of his hair, while she with vacant cat's-eyes mused upon him, as when a cat is cornered by a dog, and, with one paw raised as in blessing, yet not to bless, waits, with vacant eyes that muse and move a little...

Dumbness now, but for the dynamo's mutter and meditation; till she decided to say "He was poisoned by strychnine."

But then he calmly said "You are somehow misled; he was not poisoned by anything."

"Yes, once... Once only, I take it?" He did not answer; and she asked again "Once only?"

Then she: "What made you go back that second day?" His answer hesitated. "To—be amiable."

"And on the death-night were you told that he had pointed at the medicine-bottle in dying?"

"So you had reason to suspect something wrong? Did you then examine the bottle, smell into it—or anything?"

He reflected. Then: "No, I do not remember seeing it... Perhaps I ought to have been more inquisitive and formal, but the story of his 'pointing at the bottle'—to have a dose given him, may-be, in a heart-attack—did not impress me as significant, nor suggest the idea 'poison', since he was obviously not poisoned. In the absence of specific signs of a poison, there is a 'poisoned expression to a trained eye."

"Yes. And do you say, Doctor, that it was impossible for you not to have seen it, if he had been poisoned?"

"Oh, well"—now she flung up her fingers in her little flippant way—"mystery thickens, this is the house that Jack built—I don't know where we are!"

And he, with an eye of indictment aside on her: "Here is where you are, wasting time instead of nursing: trying to find the poisoner of one who was not poisoned; and, if he had been poisoned, and you found out all, still you would be wasting time, since the matter is not important."

At which she flushed a little, resentful of that serenity of his reign, his austere habit of intellect, whose scepticism ever battered her sure old castle of notions, yet fascinated like the Tempter; and she pouted to answer "Oh I say that the sin of murder is of some importance."

He bent a little toward her to say "You are sure, now, I think, of the untruth of that statement of mine: but reflect: remembering that we are born into a sea of villager notions, which, as children, we soak in and absorb; or they are like lyers-in-ambush that kidnap our intellect in our youth's slumber—"

And he: "Ha! brightly said... 'a kidnapping of napping—', ha! Yes, ere we have half-a-chance to think: Chinese children, hypnotised, smiling at the simplicity of Irish children hypnotised: and since hypnotic concepts are extremely deep-seated, we must expect to have to exercise some mental effort, if we aim to uproot them, to attain to truth, and become better men. Now, in that word 'sin there is an idea of wilfulness in a resistance to the Universal Power: so a cow cannot 'sin, 'sin' being resistance to a Universal Trend whose direction is known—known by men to be toward developing lizards into linnets. But murder is done in resistance to a man; and the wilfulness here is without relevance to the Trend. Village 'religions' indeed, which conceive of God as being manlike, conceive a relevance, teaching 'love God-and-your-neighbour'; but this is like saying 'love windows-and-winkles'—there's no relevance. If your neighbour is a duke, and you love him, that tends to be irreligious; if you murder him, that tends to be religious; if you murder him in thousands, wilfully for the Trend's good, as worker-bees murder drones, as the French did in '92, then that is definitely religious, definitely helps God. For what is 'God'? God is 'the Power that moves the universe'—though to say 'the' Power 'that' is odd, as though there were other powers outside the universe: so say simply 'God is Power', Might, Force. Now, Force is unknowable: for we can only know what has qualities, has a nature—a book, a bull—and Force has no nature; if it had, it would be forced—like bulls, books—to behave according to its nature; but only Force can force: so Force would force Force—which is foolish. Force, then, has no nature, is above nature, super-natural, absolute Lord and God, Almighty, Unknowable. But we know what Force does—produces Motion, produces 'Progress': this being the sole function of Force; Force does nothing else. So, then, since God's interest (so to say) is in Motion alone, in 'Progress' alone, and 'Progress' implies Society, you see that only offences directed against Society are irreligious—land-'owning', 'trusts', 'corners', paper-leather, wretched thread vended at monopoly-prices, champagne made of gooseberries, fish pitched into the sea to keep prices high—yes, that's sin. So the New Religion, not of villagers, but of gentlefolk, teaches, not 'love God-and-your-neighbour', but 'love God-and-England', 'sweat great drops for God-and-Brazil', 'die for God-and-Life'; or simply 'love God', caring as little for the life of Dick as for your own life, caring only for God, your Parent."

Agnes moved uneasily. She asked "So murder is not 'an offence against Society'?"

"No, no," he gently answered: "that is an African notion—and a true notion when Society is a kraal: for where there is only one tinker, if someone kills the tinker, Society pines. But not in nations. Even if Moseley's death at Gallipoli did a little hurt Society, the manner of it did not; and to murder him would have been no sin, if not directed, wilful, as against the Trend. Ask yourself: how could the manner, even the fact, of the death of one or two million O'Connors hurt World-Society? So 'God' is not 'interested', so to say. In every second men die; think of typewriters pattering: so men die; not to mention mice, melons, lions. This is a fact: and such as you and I should not be like the common man, for whom facts in general are dead things: we should realise facts, live on them, digesting them into the mesh of our everyday intelligence. If in that eternal hail-storm of deaths, on one earth among many millions, ten a minute are murders, earthquake-deaths, how can that matter? but the climb of Life matters, Society, God's drive and strife. In the Bible, that text-book of many who wish to be religious, they are correctly told what matters, what sin is, where it says 'A false balance is an abomination to the Lord' —false balances being in the mood of mine-'owning', 'rings' of little tricksters against Life, 'combines', 'middlemen', blasphemous plots against a planet: this is sin. Among the Bolsheviks of Russia such sinners, if caught, are now instantly murdered, while we British villagers absurdly trouble about murdering murderers, who are no sinners, looking upon the Bolsheviks as irreligious for murdering sinners, whereas it is they who are religious, and we who are villagers. This, then, is the law as to sin."

Now afresh he rushed off to see to his mirror-galvanometer, while Agnes let her gaze fall from him to her wrist-watch; and, as he came again, stood up, saying "I will go."

"But—will you not eat something with me?" he asked. And she: "Thanks, I have an appointment—been here two hours."

"No, thanks. I shall become a Bolshevik with a tomahawk. I like my nice cosy village—don't want to be routed out."

"But there you are not yourself—not heroic and robust. And it is 'nicer' when one is routed out, though less 'cosy': for life is nicer than death, 'life is sweet', sweeter than sleepiness and peace."

He went with her to his garden-gate; and she, going up his lane, was whispered by some instinct in her inwards "Glance behind! the man is still lingering there at the gate"; but no glance she gave.

Chapter IX
PUBLIC ANALYST

ON getting home, Agnes sat on a box at her bedroom-window, whose top just reached her knees, and there remained like a stone, her thighs parallel like rollers, chin on fists, thinking behind still eyes, seeing without seeing a group of five stationary on the road below, bathed in the bright daylight of that day—'Tom' Price, with two others known to her, and a countryman unknown, his beard back of his chin, holding the hand of a boy of six; and, as the "gossiping newshunters'" gossip oozed into her consciousness, she presently found herself knowing that the unknown countryman was the father of that vanished Hester Hayes, again come to "drop across" a man who had visited Hester at St. Arvens, and been seen there by the boy.

But her thoughts were absent from them, occupied with her visit to the doctor, with "Murder not a sin"; and in her memory somehow was a "trial" which she had once witnessed, in which the accused had denied doing the thing, but then had gone on to argue that, anyway, there was no sin in it; and, though she had understood that he had done it, the jury, deluded by his disinterested frankness in arguing for others, had acquitted him; and Agnes had said "smart man!"

But now came up to her from Tom Price "And what kind o' looking man was him, Bob?"

The little man squared himself to answer "Him did kiss she, and him did hug she, and him did push she up against the gate."

A guffawing followed among the gossips, in the midst of which Agnes was aware of a rapping at the front door: and down the stair, a torrent of frocks, she dropped, to say to Gilfillan "Come on, blow yourself dyingly in—chop for you, lovely tapioca-custard..."

"Ah!" he sighed, "tapioca"—freeing his neck of silk, then presenting lilies and roses, and entering a little "parlour" crammed with ornaments that had cost up to "eleven three-farthings," the table decent with a linen clean and stiff; and when Lizzie Davis, having brought the "dinner," was gone, Agnes at once said "News for you!"

"You are news in yourself"—from Gilfillan—"every minute new with infinite variety—"

"Letter from Whitehall yesterday—Analyst's report. Look here, the rim of that urn was broken by me. I was prowling round Clonnach—early morning—when I noticed a stain on it—under one of Sir Patrick's bedroom-windows it is, there in that 'area' at the back, protected from rain by eaves; stain brownish, bitterish taste, faint smell: so I said 'digitalis', conjecturing that whoever had nicked medicine-bottle after the death may have flung medicine out of window; and I broke urn with stone, sent bit to my brother Wesley, who reported strychnine, then sent to Government Laboratory. Report: gravimetric microanalysis, wet way, one per cent accuracy, 997th grain of strychnine present. Yet doctor says there was 'no' strychnine with digitalis which he gave."

At this Gilfillan sat up! "Well! exhumation... Yes, bound to come now... Ah! you have spoken, then, with —the doctor?"

"I see. Ha! lucky guys, doctors. They become doctors in order to boss a world of nurses. You and he long together?"

"And did he deny that any strychnine was in the medicine before you told him that strychnine had been found—or after?"

"What I am asking myself now is whether or not he mayn't have gone back to the death-chamber at some time after the death-night, without being noticed. Have you made sure as to that?"

She gave the equivocal answer "Oh, yes," and no more; and he broke out "Lucky guys!—doctors. This one looks like Jove, only his beard's black—"

"Ah? I haven't condescended to notice his nose: been too occupied in wondering if it was he who poisoned O'Connor."

Her eyes fell; she was silent; but suddenly laughed, saying "Anyway, murder is no longer a sin, boys!"

"Quotation: he says so. It appears that whatever you do against an individual—burglary, murder—that's not a sin, because God—'the Universal Power'—is not 'interested': only what you do against a world, Society, Life, that's sin: God's 'interested.'"

No answer at once. Then: "He has added three formulae to the mathematics of magnetism—so Wesley writes."

And now, her eyes on her plate, deliberately she said "As the heavens are high above the earth so are his thoughts higher than our thoughts."

Upon which Gilfillan paused in cutting his chop tiny to mutter "Oh, come, not the heavens."

"You think that? To me all that about 'sin' is flapdoodle. Society is made of individuals: if you murder all the individuals, you evidently murder the society; therefore, if you murder one of the individuals, you a little murder the society; therefore, the Universal Power is 'interested'; therefore murder is sin."

"Now, let me see"—she peered upward at it, as at the sun, with flinching lids which shivered—"No, I see a fallacy in your first 'therefore'. If you bleed anyone dry, you kill; but, if you blood-let, you don't a little kill. It isn't only Society that's 'made of individuals': everything is, except electrons; and, if you file your watch, you do for it, but, if you just touch it with finger, though that removes millions of the individuals of which it is made, still, as a society, it works on, not a little hurt. If you take Rockefeller's millions, you make him poor; but, if you take a cent, you don't a little make him poor—"

"Why, yes. But aren't you missing the point? Point is: do you hurt him a little? No, he's unhurt: it's like (dy)2 in differentiating—negligible. If you push a door hard, you break it open; but, if you push it a little, you don't a little break it open. There is a critical point at which water freezes, electron hops—depends upon how many you murder. If country is over-populated, and you murder a third, you may benefit Society, as in blood-letting, pruning—may, I say—I don't know."

Silence. Then Gilfillan: "Say, though, is it St. Agnes talking this style about murder? May the Banshee change me into a doctor! Why, he has bossed our little intellect in one interview. Here we are out to nobble the murderer, and before we are half through the sun beholds us glorifying murder, setting the murderer on a pedestal—because a little country-doctor says that murder's no sin... He may have personal reasons—"

"Aye—may. But I'll bet you fifty pounds—no, ten—ten solid pounds—that, if he did it, he had some motive that was not personal."

"Say, this is a new zeal of the chameleon"—Gilfillan sat at bay, smiling at his "orange-wine"—"You approve of the man, then? And that Walpole fledgling... How do I stand? It was I who discovered you."

"Oh, it doesn't go in little steps. Listen: I want you and me to do a frame-up; you have to be on Clonnach lawn one evening—with Winter—and there will be a boy loitering by the sun-dial, whom you will whisper to run to ask the doctor to come to Clonnach—no details; then, ten minutes after, knock, asking to see me, for I'll contrive to be there, questioning Monk; and you will tell Winter that you want him to hear what you have to say to me; then when what is to happen happens, keep sharp eyes, noticing everybody. The when I will hear tomorrow from London, and send you a note. Meantime, don't breathe 'exhumation' to a soul."

Gilfillan reflected, and said "Right! I think I see the deal. The first night I saw you at that Christmas-tree and Charades, I said 'genius there': it was I discovered you... But where have you got to now in the case? As to Winter and that Hester-girl, you are on the wrong track somehow, because Monk and she—"

But a rapping interrupted him; and in stepped Alan Walpole with the rector, his father—a hearty being, built large, bouncing, boisterous, loud of voice: it was he who presented the mass of flowers which the son had brought, he also having a gusto for Agnes' personality; and the gusto and wind of his coming so overpowered Gilfillan, that Gilfillan soon took himself away, forgetting to take his stick, too.

Which stick came strangely into evidence that same midnight: for Lizzie Davis was then aware of Agnes' door being opened, and, on getting out of bed to peer, saw Agnes going like a ghost, tall in a nightgown, twin plaits going down her back, like legs opened, from a parting betwixt, candlestick in hand: for, timorous of darkness and apparitions, she ever slept with a light shining; and her steps advanced with a certain solemnity of trance and nocturnal mystery, knee by knee—down the stair. Lizzie Davis breathed "Her be a-sleep!," and followed, while Agnes moved to the front door; fumbled, wishing to go out; but, not chancing to touch the latch-string, turned inward, to step, knee by knee, into the "parlour." In there she took up the flowers brought her that day by Alan Walpole, to press them to her nostrils with inhalations of passionate appetite; and now, with the flowers, she moved to where Gilfillan's stick stood in its corner, fondly to smooth it, knob and shaft, with her palm, and presently to kneel before it, and to breathe to it "Dear, dear love!"

After which, knee by knee, she stepped out, stepped up, stepped away into her bedroom.

As she was dressing the next morning, singing aloud "Oh, God, our help in ages past," Lizzie Davis came with letters; and, on hearing then what had happened in the nighttime, Agnes stood ghast...

"Never did such a thing before...! And which bunch did I take up? the one with the lilies?"

"And then I went and knelt to the stick! 'Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them.'... I said 'dear love!' Oh, but are you sure?"

"Oh, well"—throwing up her fingers with drollery in her little flippant way—"we all go soppy for one third of our lives when baby's 'up a tree' rockabyeing... But I can be pretty queerish in sleep; have visions, intuitions. Twice I've seen places that I had never seen awake, and afterwards went to, recognized 'em, had been there somehow thousands of years before; and once I dreamt that a patient was drowning, and when I rushed to her bedside, there she was stifling... But don't go telling anybody about this—if you can help... And will you ask Jim Davis to come"—this Jim Davis being a boy whom she wanted to send with a note to Gilfillan at Elberleigh to let Gilfillan know the right moment for the "frame-up" at Clonnach: on receiving which, Gilfillan telephoned to Winter at the Marchstow Constabulary, and, with Winter, was duly on the Clonnach lawn at seven that (Wednesday) evening: Agnes being then in the drawing-room, having Monk before her; while Foy O'Connor was at a little Giuliano work-bench (semicircular), be-shone by a bunch of glowlamps which a Grace held forth; and at the piano an elderly lady (a Mrs. Sayce) was uttering the notes of "Humoresque."

And "Yes," Agnes was saying, "I see. And—at what hour was this when Griffiths, the grave-digger, saw him and you in the graveyard?"

"No doubt of it. He was only middling at the latter end, with the presentiment that was on him."

"Yes"—looking at an oil-painting of the baronet by Foy on an easel—narrow length of face, "imperial," eye-glass, bags coming under the eyes: and one knew somehow that it was just like him, depicted by a seeing eye, by tricky fingers... "Yes"—she glanced at her wrist-watch—"had a presentiment. Why had he?"

"The tumblers would be cracking about the house. On the Monday I was after picking up a tumbler, when it cracked in my hand; on the Tuesday at his lunch—that's his breakfast—he had a tumbler of whisky lifted to the mouth of him when that same cracked in his hand."

"Never the word he said. He only went whhoite; and it was myself went whhoite as well."

"Well, I don't know did I see myself whhoite... I would be feeling the whhoiteness within in myself."

Now Foy, drawing silver wire through a draw-plate, called loud-whispering "Be Irish, Monk! Tell her that the absence of your complexion made its presence felt... Feeble question to ask!"

Agnes smiled, did not answer, made a note, glanced at that "complexion" of Monk, which already tended to white, his eyes behind their spectacles vague like eggs in a pond, having a certain inwardness of meditation as on something locked inside his consciousness; and with a certain avertedness, wrapped in himself, he stood giving his answers, fingering a button of his swallow-tail that looked too skimpy for his bulk, repeatedly clearing his throat with a stuttering of trucks trundling.

"I hope you don't mind my questions"—Agnes again glanced at her watch—"You are not obliged... But you help me by answering."

"Let you go ahead, then," he was saying, when Marie Moran, the lady's-maid, rapped, entered, stepped to Foy's bench—a slight thing, white-faced, with great grey eyes, one palm held against her face; and Agnes was aware of her saying (in English) "Ah, Miss, I am excruciated!"

Foy continued to work awhile, but then, fixing her eyes on the girl's eyes, murmured (in French) "One, Two, Three: gone in three minutes"; upon which the maid bent her head, went away.

And Agnes wondered. She said to Monk "Yes. And about the flood—did he know of that?"

"Why would he not?" Monk answered: "those tree-trunks breaking in as they did would waken him."

"I would be most of the way to The Old House then. O'Loughlin was after running in wild to tell me he was hearing the Banshee out at The Old House, so I left the master asleep, and was off with me to see could I hear it, too, when all at once the flood was on the top of me, and sent me running back."

"Banshee may have opened them... What was O'Loughlin doing out at The Old House?"

"It would be spying on Hester Hayes he'd be. He was after seeing the creature go out that way."

"Yes. Miss O'Connor, and I, too, said that it was the creaking of that wind-wheel, but it couldn't have been, for it moved about. You and Mary Skerrett heard it together, eh? After you had run back from the flood, and up again to the baronet, Mary rushed up to tell you that the flood was in the back-room where Martha Parnell lay ill; and just then you and she hear Banshee. Then you ran down to sick-room, and, as you were helping to carry sick-bed to the Inner Hall, those tree-trunks came breaking in; then in Inner Hall you heard baronet cry out; when you rushed to him up front-stair, he pointed at medicine-bottle, dropped back, died: have I got it right?"

Her hands covered her eyes in a stillness broken only by the piano-notes, and by the brabbling of Foy's flame blown upon a coil of silver-wire on a charcoal-block; and, as Foy dipped the wire, now annealed, to a hiss in water, she glanced round to send a whisper to Agnes: "Who told you that a servant was ill?"

Foy bent to clipping the wire into lengths; while Agnes, glancing at her watch, said to Monk "But, going back to the death-day—when he and you came home from the graveyard, what next?"

"Yes. Fitchett had been here several times—about the new will. You knew the amounts left to you and to Hester Hayes?"

"But she was a pretty thing, Hester? He and you and O'Loughlin liked pretty things?"

Now Foy heaved up a little the wee hammer in her hand, peeping round to send out the whisper: "Oh! to slander the dead!"

"It could be that he took a liking to the creature," Monk replied: "but I'd thank you not to be putting it out that him, the poor man, or me, would be apt to be troubling our head about 'pretty things', the same as we might be young things. He'd be speaking to her at an odd time. When he noticed that the creature was crying all sorts, he questioned her, I know, with the good heart he had in him; and he left her the lump of money, the way it would be a comfort to her."

"The way it would quieten her... I was after coming on her cleaning my room, and—I dropped it at her ear."

Agnes smiled without answer; then to Monk: "Did she ever tell you that she meant to leave Clonnach?"

"But you know that two days after the death she went to Weeks, the builder, and arranged to take one of his cottages outside Marchstow?"

"Out for hours!—went to Marchstow: and you, head of the household—Where, then, were you?"

Monk turned to look fully at her, turned away again, before answering. "I was where I might be."

"Answer up, Monk!" Foy called across a blow-pipe between her teeth, now soldering a link of a chain of cornelians.

"You will remember in a minute... Was the body in the coffin, Monk, that day when Hester went to Marchstow, two days after the death?"

"Once I was seeing a policeman named Winter near the gate with her, and O'Loughlin would be after her, but she'd turn her back on him. The maids in the house were saying that the creature was crazy in love with the doctor."

"I wouldn't be apt to notice that much: it was getting dark on us, the way I did not see her well."

"Yes, you remember now. Upstairs in the death-chamber, were you?—which looks upon The New Garden. And you had been upstairs all day, or you must have known about Hester being out. But didn't you come down for lunch, then?"

"It's moidered I was with the sorrow that was on me: I couldn't stop to be hungry."

"Late, though, I hear: dined alone. While the others were at table you didn't slip out to meet Hester?"

"Yes. And while they did, you moved about—looked out of window, saw Hester—are a bit nervous at times. And the night after that night of Hester's disappearance you were seen by—someone—about two in the morning—searching with a candle about the house, prying behind furniture, worried, Monk... What was that about?"

Monk was dumb some moments. Then: "Is it what I was searching for? It would be a piece of something that had left me."

On which Monk bowed stiffly to her, with "It was a piece of an old prayer-book that was missing from me, Miss Foy."

"Prayer-book... Why did you care?"—from Foy. "It was precious to me, Miss Foy." She shrugged, resumed her soldering. And now Agnes to Monk: "But about the coffining. The corpse had a face-cloth on then: who put that on? You?"

"Nor on the day after death when he came again?" Monk started at this. "Came again...?"

"The doctor did, Miss Foy"—Monk bowed. "Where, then, was I?"—from Foy. "You were at your dinner, Miss Foy."

"What, was it a secret?"—from Agnes to Monk: "who in the house saw him come beside yourself?" Monk answered "I do not know."

"So it was you who took him up to the death-chamber? And you were with him there? Alone with him?"

"The doctor, too, has told me not: so the doctor saw his face well—if no one else? You tell me that?"

"Day after he was coffined? third day after death? three whole days before burial? But isn't screwing-down usually done just before burial?"

Here Monk hesitated... "Is it when he was screwed-down? It was on account of the way the weather did be hot on us. I was after speaking to Miss O'Connor, and when she agreed he'd be the better of being screwed down, I sent to bring the undertaker."

Even as she made a note, Agnes glanced at her watch, saying "Yes... And on grave-digging day, you were there at grave, eh? gave orders that grave should be six feet deep, not five; and had knotted string to measure depth!... Now, what was that about?"

Monk's throat uttered a stuttering like trucks; and he said "The deeper the grave the sweeter the sleep, then."

And she: "Bravo! well said... But on death-day: after his talk with the solicitor—what next?"

Monk reflected, recollecting, his eyes inward-gazing, vague and pale behind his spectacles. "He went up to the laboratory then; there he was when I carried him his tea; and there, God save us and deliver us, I was to find him death-struck, him sitting with the legs of him stretched out near the table that has the bottles and such on it; and he had his shirt opened, the way you'd see the swelling of his heart outside his body—"

"Some such: big as your fist very near. Then I put him to bed, and sent to bring the doctor."

"May have... But the doctor tells me that he was not 'death-struck'—not specially bad that day!"

"The Lord save us, but himself knew different, then, the poor man, and myself knew different, on account of the way the tumblers did be cracking on us as they did be. He said to me 'Sure, this would be the last, Monk', he says, 'every dog will have his day'; and on his bed he said 'The valley of the shadow of death, the dark'."

Agnes glanced at her watch: the moment for Gilfillan's coming was close. She said "But when the doctor came, was he not better then?"

"Well—may-be—I am thinking he was better then, so he was: not struck so whhoite and scant of breath—"

Here he was interrupted by the entrance of O'Loughlin to announce that Mr. Gilfillan and Inspector Winter wanted to see Miss Heygate; upon which Agnes asked Foy if she might see them there a little, and said to the footman "bring them."

In a moment more, by three touches, she had put-on 2 LO wireless beside her chair—a set self-contained in cases which held all the gadgets; and she had snatched a headphone to her right ear, to hear one stroke of seven that Big Ben was then striking...

No one saw: Monk had moved off from her, Mrs. Sayce continued to play, Foy to solder, even when Gilfillan entered, bowing, with Winter.

But before they could sit O'Loughlin again appeared, followed by the doctor, who, after bowing deliberately to each of the three ladies, asked of Monk "Who is ill?"

While all eyes were on him, Agnes again snatched a headphone to her right ear, to hear "visibility moderate," and quickly deposited it...

"A boy came to ask me to come at once to Clonnach," the doctor mentioned: "who, then, sent him?"

And now Foy, who, too, had stood up in her bib, a burnisher in one hand, her chain, half-made, hanging from the other, looked at Gilfillan with lids that blinked thrice, reflecting on him, and once her eyes flew aside to glance at Agnes, and back again to blink at Gilfillan...

As he said "mistaken," Agnes heard "O'Connor" in the 'phone; and instantly she had a loud-speaker fitted...

At once the voice of one prophesying in London was calling aloud in that room; and it pronounced the words: "exhumation of Sir Patrick O'Connor was resolved upon in the conference with a Home Office official at Gloucestershire County Constabulary head-quarters at..." There it stopped: Agnes had switched off...

The others stood struck to statuary. Agnes saw Winter, white behind his red veinlets, look at Foy; saw Foy look at the doctor; and Gilfillan saw an underlook of Monk dwell on the doctor, who stood with his eyes on the floor.

And now Monk, who was as blanched as Winter, suddenly took himself out of the room with pressing steps.

When Agnes' eyes flitted from him back to Foy, Foy's head was bent over her chain, she now bevelling down a collet's edge with the burnisher; and, as Mrs. Sayce, standing pallid, exclaimed "Well! after all—exhumation!," Foy turned to step back to her bench, going a little out of her way to confide to Agnes in her busy breath-whisper: "Poor stuff!"

Chapter X
THE BODY

THE next day wave upon wave of agitation spread out from The Three Villages over Britain: for, if the prospect of exhumation had been agitating, what followed upon the broadcasting of it was much more so, as Gilfillan showed to Agnes in a sheaf of papers which shrieked like geese that evening in great headlines that proclaimed:

THE FOILED ATTEMPT.
ATTEMPT TO OPEN O'CONNOR'S GRAVE.
DAYBREAK INTERRUPTS.
ATTEMPT TO SNATCH O'CONNOR'S BODY,

and so on: for when, following upon a Home Office order, some constables had gone that morning to "take possession" of the grave, they had been astonished to find it already opened—to half its depth—by some unauthorized person or persons, who had apparently been at work upon it through the night of the broadcasting, but had been baulked by the dawning of morning.

Agnes was flushed at it, and "Oh, well," she said, flinging up her fingers with her little flippancy, "mystery thickens, boys. Now your British Public is happy: has no packs to hunt foxes, so enjoys itself with whippet-coursing and with this sort of hue-and-cry. View-hallo it is! I'm off, too, with the throng: over hedges and ditches, and dash the consequences. Nice! to feel wine-of-the-morning rioting inside."

"Pretty when your eyes crackle like electricity sparking," Gilfillan confided to her.

"How about our Monk?"—a whisper—"'If I wasn't the fool!' that outcry? His flesh is white like a fish's today, and his palms have corns."

"Well, there'll be clues... dabbled clothes... As I told you, I have already seen the spade that—"

"May be up against somebody sharper than ourselves! Question of wit. There's a young gentleman—a Dane he is—named Niels Bohr, who can spy out to five decimal-places how atoms are larking far down in the dark of their privacy—that lad could dig up five bodies and five Agneses wouldn't find him out. Wit!—that's it. With wit He seated the earth! fastened the heavens with understanding... Ah, here they come already, the 'strangers'"—looking out of window—"two pressmen, a police-photographer, coroner's officer—know them at sight!" Then, turning inward: "Does anything strike you in Foy O'Connor?"

But she pettishly stopped him with "Yes, you've said that before—better go and tell herself... There's something about that lady's being—dear me, tantalizing thing! king's-English fails me; my lips have opened to say it and said nothing."

"It is that whispering of hers! or her modernity of—Ah, here comes old Massingham!"—Gilfillan was now at the window, and Agnes tripped to it to peer at a man who firmly stepped the earth by official right, still young enough, but having his two nostril-wrinkles deep-graved, these giving him a look of disgust as at bad smells on the nose-mat of bristles that persisted on his lip's middle bit—a solid forehead with hair dropping across it, made for sweat of business and wary thinking within his slits of eye, which sagely weighed: Massingham—of the "Big Five," hot from Whitehall, "in charge" of things; and Gilfillan called to him "Hail, Massingham! here we are again."

The officer stopped, talked, said "Glad to meet Miss Heygate at last," remarked "The thing has put the country in a pretty flutter," asked "Been to the graveyard, no doubt?," and added "I am going that way myself—getting the lay of the land..."

"We will come and cicerone you," Agnes said, ran to get a lantern, and the three paced up the lane to Clonnach-gate, her bare hair besprinkled by a spirit of drizzling that frizzed the air, she animated, flushed, making the others chuckle at anecdotes which she told of the local Toms and Joans, at their voices which she copied, and the comic mood of her view of their humours—the "gossiping newshunting lot": until they had moved along The New House, past the quadrangle of semi-Mauresque that the stables are, and through The New Garden, on past the Home Farm, and now to their left lay a mound ("The Tump"), with the pheasantry in the dip between it and them; then a grass-ride through the West Home-covert, where the lantern came-in well; and here a noising of waters arose, soon to grow to a booming of the bassoon, which loaded the ear-drum with grumbling, as they drew nearer "The Fishponds"—these being a group of pools, dismal under a gloom of timber, that draw their tons of fluid at a funeral pace along, to drop in cascades one upon another, as clods drop upon the coffin, the funeral done; and here, as the round-towers of The Old House appeared darkling among vast old trees, Massingham muttered "Dear me, not unlike the Tower of London."

And Agnes: "We go round this way to the boats"—along a moss-path to the north-east of the castle, where, going down three steps green and broken, they got into a boat that trailed a beard of green, as Agnes rowed them through murks of shadow cast by an external curtain of the castle. Over which curtain, a mass of untooled ashlar, trees peered, more deepening the shadow; and here she rested on her oars to say "There was an event on the stair in that north-west tower—no end of a flare-up—in 1763 it was. House-party going on, when one of the guests challenged another—a Lord William Billingham—to a duel; but this Lord William, coward by nature, was not taking any chances, and, with a chum's help, assassinated the challenger on that stair, night before the duel-day. Dark-minded matter: they say place hasn't been much inhabited since, that's why The New House was built; nor you won't meet any Tom or Martha hanging about here after dark. I have greatly dared, saw no ghost-lights, no ghost tugged my hair: it felt stiff, though—was nearly tugged. Even in day-time—I've seen only one old granddad, name's Pete Greet; deaf! has forgotten how to talk! comes to gather beech-mast for pig, pine-cones for fire."

Now the sickle of the moon moved quite down out of the clouds, leaving the night still gloomier, as the boat drew near to a gate in a wall which was the back-wall of the graveyard; and here, on stepping up seven steps on which the feet slipped, they could see eastward three gleams of lanterns outside the canvas-screen that now surrounded Sir Patrick's grave, not far on their right: for there he had liked to lie—not within the ancestral brick-grave under the church, but beneath a tree overlooking the water near this back-wall, where could be closer heard that booming of the lakes making their murmur in the mood of eternity; and near him, with four gravestones at their heads, and four (little ones) at their feet, lay four Davises in a row, like men who have determined to turn-up their toes in strait beds, wherein to stick stiff-stark in a row, and wait. Nor were the gleams round the grave the only ones, others appearing through the drizzly gloom among trees, where newsmen and groups of villagers stood off, gossiping in hushed voices, conscious that the coffin would be raised at some hour before daybreak; and by the grave-gleams could be seen round the grave masses of marl, moist chocolate, but in blocks sharp-cut like rocks, "sweet clods of the valley," snug to sleep in, which the unauthorized hand had dug up, and had dug the grave-foot away to a slant. But no one might go close to the grave to make foot-prints there, for the foot-prints left by the unauthorized foot had not yet been photographed and investigated: so Massingham took Inspector Winter, who was waiting there, a little way, to pace "in step," and confabulate low-voiced, while Agnes sat on the wall, looking at the water, looking at a boat that lay close under her; and the query arose in her "What's this boat kept here for?" A cord at its stem seemed to anchor it...

After which the three walked back to their boat, Agnes now rowing along the castle-back (that looks west) through stretches of bulrush, archipelagoes of lily-leaves, where the water-rat voyages, as trading-ships do, from Fiji to Tahiti, and grebes and reedwrens brood in the glooms; and she rowed past bastions propped with timber, where subsidences of the water-logged subsoil had broken the walls; and past little reaches of beach, upon whose shingle at the ramparts' bottom the waters gush sluggishly in blackness of shadow: within which shadow tribes of little beings, drenched in reverie, live their retired lives. And Agnes said "This is the bit I call 'Traitor's Gate'," as the boat now moved into the castle down an alley as gloomy as Abaddon, whose walls the oars almost touched—a streetlet spanned overhead by a series of groined vaults, between each two vaults being the roofs of little buildings rising one behind the other; until they got to four steps before a Gothic portal at the alley's end, where they remained, discussing points of the case in voices pitched low: for there was that in the void of the dark's dumbness which, like conch-shells, muttered "mum" upon the tympanum's instincts; Agnes and Gilfillan telling Massingham what they knew with a great air of openness; and Massingham remarked in his moderate manner of expressing himself "The comments in the papers hardly seem much to the point, some of them. That 'Attempt to Snatch O'Connor's Body': doesn't seem very..."

And he: "Well, hardly very well thought out, perhaps... How could a man's coffin be raised without tackle?— unless at least four people are presumed—"

"Seems to have been only one," Gilfillan put in: "two would have got down to the coffin, working only half the night."

"They may not have worked half the night"—from Massingham: "in fact, I've just had it from Winter that the foot-prints were made by two."

Agnes said nothing. But then suddenly: "Now we'll show the spade that did it, and the ponds"; so when the boat had waddled back out of the black slops of the alley, they paced to The Ponds, saw the waste-weirs for discharging surplus-waters during rains, the sluices, the stop-gates that run-off the water by an off-let, also the lock-gates, as to which Massingham remarked "It must take some strength to open these things."

"Not one-at-a-time," Agnes answered: "there are these gearings, see; but the shutting, when both were opened, and the stop-gates shut, was a job, flood meantime washing round The New House."

"And Hester Hayes"—from Agnes—"and O'Loughlin, and the Banshee, and the Angel of Death."

"We'll see how we go" Massingham muttered... "As for Hester Hayes, she must be unearthed. The lake will be dragged for her."

Agnes answered in a low tone "Or she may now be lying lonely in the dark behind those bastions..."

"Well, hardly that"—from Massingham—"the place has been too thoroughly searched by the police."

She made no reply; and now they left The Fishponds to move afresh toward The New Garden, a gate of which had been broken through by tree-trunks in the flood; and so to a range of stable-doors topped by a clock-tower in a yard that lay dark, only one ray visible in a window, the stillness broken only by some hoof smitten, by sounds from a kennel, by a baying when two fox-hounds trotted up, these accompanying the lantern into a manger in which lay some mowers, picks, barrows; and in there Gilfillan pointed at a spade, saying "That one, we think, was the sinner, though this one looks more like it"—"this", being all dabbled with a brown soil, while "that" was brown only along its edge; and, without touching, Massingham pried at them through a magnifier in his eye-socket, while Agnes held the lantern nigh in a silence.

This silence Gilfillan broke by saying "That soil on them was still moist this morning, and it is soil from the graveyard or westward of the graveyard, where you get another stratum-outcrop—porphyritic—while hereabouts you get alluvium, blacker stuff washed down. And you needn't peer for finger-prints: gloves were worn."

"Which means," Agnes remarked, "that work went on for hours. Oughtn't they to have got down deeper, if there was more than one?"

Massingham answered "That spade seems to have done no digging, was simply stuck into the soil, while this one was used, either in turn by the workers, or—suppose one was a gentleman? He might just look on..."

Her eyes rested on him, divining more of his mind than he expressed; and she said "Just look on? with morning coming upon them?"

And Massingham: "Yes, there's no gate-lodge: any outsider can come in at night... And now we'll see the tree-trunks and urn."

They then went out to the house-back, along the bottom of which runs an "area," or trench, brick-lined, with three steps, within it being four urns bearing geraniums (from one of which Agnes had broken a fragment); and she said to Massingham "Stands under that Sir Patrick window, see... Window to extreme right of house is Monk's, these next two are Sir Patrick's, next two the laboratory's, those last two to left Miss O'Connor's... Here's mouth of waste-pipe that carries off what rain-water comes into area from eaves and stackpipe; and, as it is a pretty small waste-pipe, flood must have had these urns drowned—for an hour, I think: so it was at least an hour after death when the medicine was flung out of window to stain the urn. That, anyway, was done by somebody belonging to Clonnach: no 'outsider', no 'gentleman', in Clonnach then."

"There may have been a gentleman the next day, though" —Massingham nodded; "the medicine may have been flung out then."

But Massingham persisted. "The question is, was a gentleman in Clonnach the next day? You, Miss Heygate, and you, Gilfillan, must have made efforts to discover that definitely."

At which Agnes flushed: for for one detective to pump another's mumness is scarcely professional; but, before she could, Gilfillan answered "No, White-Deighton was not in Clonnach the next day—if he told the truth to Miss Heygate."

On which Agnes flushed still deeper, and said to Gilfillan "I never said that he told me so!"

And Massingham, still persisting: "But did he deny that he was in Clonnach that day, Miss Heygate?"

"Ah, Monk: no one else... The gentleman had already seen the dead man: did he mention to you at all why he came again—in that way?"

"Came 'to be amiable', he said; to pay his respects, I take it: they two had been friends."

And now, under Monk's room, they stepped to a doorway that was still blocked-up, to its lintel, with trunks—some of them, after breaking through the door, having bombarded a back-stair there within, while some still lay across the "area" in disarray—trunks of a pile of young ash-trees which, lying on the death-night within copse-land westward, awaiting there the saw-mill and the winter-fire, had decided to weigh and sail, a navy, on the flood's coming; but, even as Gilfillan was saying "He was asleep, it seems, when the trees came crashing," the three were parted: for a stable-boy at the rectory named Berry Davis came to tell that the rector was "very sick," and the doctor also "sick," the boy having been sent by Lizzie Davis toward the grave to track down Agnes thereabouts; and Agnes said to him "Can you run? Come!"-—throwing her lantern to Gilfillan.

Chapter XI
A GLOVE

WESTWARD, then, her feet sped, enlightened by the boy's lantern, as the law of God is a lamp to the feet of Life, and a light on its path, through The New Garden, onward to The Old House, where they took boat to the graveyard back-steps; then on, northward, across the graveyard, now pretty thick with lantern-gleams of officials, pressmen, villagers; and on to a lychgate which opens upon a little alley of flagstones old as Magna Charta, this going down to the Clonnach "private road"; along which (westward to the left) they trotted on for the rectory now near on their left; till, on coming to the doctor's lane on their right, Agnes almost halted, surprised—at the sight of the doctor standing there with Miss Foy O'Connor.

In his (left) hand he had an electric torch, in whose short sheen the scene of them seemed an apparition of conspirators, she holding in one hand a hunter, having-on riding-coat, gauntlets, looking a "garçonne" or boy-girl, holding also the doctor's sleeve, speaking closely, he bareheaded in the drizzle, his hand that held the glow-light white, but his right hand black—in a glove.

Agnes rather frowned at it, sped on past; and, on entering the rectory-grounds, said to Berry Davis "I thought the doctor was ill?"

With invective she lectured near his ear "Too sick to see the sick, not too sick for petticoats! Makes me sick."

In another minute Alan Walpole had her, and the sisters, Lily, Doris, tall lilies, taller than Alan, were raining their thanks, Lily with "Oh, Miss Heygate, this is so sweet of you! Not one of the cottage-hospital nurses was available—"

The pair exchanged glances which smiled, and "Bravo," Doris cried, "we shall show him how."

"Come, no time for chatter"—from Agnes—for in the first football of that season the rector, in making a save, had received an injury, had presently sickened, and that night there was empyema, hectic eyes, ramblings, babble, "exhumation" on the brain... Agnes was quickly with him.

And since a sick-room was her kingdom in which she chose to reign alone, shutting out relatives, Alan Walpole loitered disconsolate through the night-hours, conscious of her so nigh, yet remote, except when she sent him down a message of cheer by a Miss Sowter, an old needle-woman of the household, who alone was allowed to help the despot. Finally, after midnight, the unquiet eyes were coaxed to close themselves; and Miss Sowter, seated near Agnes at a window, whispered then "Such a pity the doctor's ill!"; to which Agnes whispered back "I saw him out talking to a young woman!"

"I saw him at seven o'clock last night in Clonnach drawing-room—looked all right then."

"Must have caught a chill... Usually he goes at once —to the poorest he does... We like him a lot in The Three Villages; his goodness... He's got a private income, you know, £400 it is, beside his fees—though people needn't pay him, if they don't feel that way, doesn't trouble to dun them; and he gives away right and left; people impose on him. I have it from Mrs. Lucas that she couldn't pay the motor-man one month—no money."

"Yes, I've heard"—Agnes gazed out at the heavy heavens: "but all that is against his own doctrine—says that a better individual should not sacrifice himself for a worse!"

"He doesn't live up to it, then. Wasn't it he paid Harry Jessop's passage to America last month? And that cottage of those Balls below The Chase, it was he bought—"

But a rapping below interrupted. Miss Sowter ran down, and presently was ushering in—the doctor.

He, after bowing, stepped to the bed, sat down, and for some time let those eyes of his, whose mild strength seemed to see into the interior of what they rested on, rest on the sick, who muttered in slumber; while she at the bed's foot stood watching his hand in its black glove, his face white, its vague trace of the wild-rose quite gone; and anon his eyes closed a little, as when one ponders upon pain within.

When he stood up, stepped toward her, it was with one hand pressing on the bed, as to support his steps; and he muttered to her "Lung-pressure... acatharsy... there will be trouble. Meantime, you have done well: counter-irritants are indicated... But I think he will sleep an hour: sit with me yonder a little."

Without answer she moved to a window which looked upon shrubbery close below—all those old rectory-rooms, though large, being low; and there they sat, she waiting through a silence, noting him with expressionless eyes from head to toe, noting his shut lids, his fingers shivery a little in rising just to touch his brow like a shrine religiously, a bulge beneath his glove where some bandaging seemed to be; till at last he spoke: "Forgive me, I am not well, have had a shock... But I do not wish to speak of this—I have bungled, am offended with myself; and now I suffer... I should not have come tonight, I think—was in bed—but a lady craved to see me, and I got up; then I saw you go past my lane, guessed whither, and came: for I have something to tell you."

"Good word, 'yes.' Will it be always 'yes' to me?"—with half a smile at which her instincts startled as at the cry "fire!"

"Good heart. Well, I will tell you... I am shaken, as you see, but shall soon outlive—forgive my—I will tell you. A month ago I received from the Columbia University an invitation to take a Chair in Physics there—a 'compliment', since, professionally, I am a biologist—and I wrote accepting it. But then I saw you, and no longer wished to go off at once to America: so I cabled to the Governors qualifying my acceptance. Yesterday, however, I had a letter saying that I must accept or reject—now: whereupon I cabled 'I probably come, will cable promptly'; and today—this very night—I have heard words which make me somewhat—eager to go from here. So, then, if tomorrow I cable my definite acceptance, and leave England within a week, that will be well, several knots being thus cut. The only question with me is—will you be coming, too? If you say—"

And now suddenly she leaped to her feet to lean out of window, to throw down at the leafage an outcry, rough, though low: "Who is there?"

No answer; midnight stillness: only an owl uttering remotely what the midnight meant to say: but now afresh that extreme keenness of her ears seemed to hear a sound of shuddering, as of shoulders brushing through the shrubbery of climbing briony mixed with artichoke, esparto; and she shut down the sash, saying rather breathlessly "Pardon... there's eavesdropping... did you notice anyone shadowing you?"

She sat again, venting from a heave of her bosom "Well, let him." Then: "So you think, Doctor, of going out of England? now? in a hurry? Taking me, too, poor me? You are pretty surprising, Dr. White-Deighton."

At this his face, white against his chair-back, went pained, and the closing again of his lids moved her to compunction as at "the pain of the gods." After a minute he said "You do not embrace the notion... ha, ha, you have even ears for eavesdroppers while I speak of... But a reason for this can be assigned: I am too sudden; in a day or two, I am confident—for I trust you, knowing you... I will tell you: ever since I was an alumnus I have designed to run the priestly career of a scientist in my own strength, with a celibate independence of the bread and wine of another life; but when my eyes rested with surprise on you, immediately I seemed to remember the rhythm of that folksong that your being sings; and before I had spoken to you I understood, from some 'call of the blood' and chord of harmony, that, apart from you, I am hardly half of you-and-me: so that when you supplied me with blood of yours that night at Woodston, I thought 'It is my own: our corpuscles meet and greet with a gaiety of recognition.' For me now the name of all things, atom or galaxy, is Agnes and Sister: and such messages evidently come to us out of the foundations of Nature, out of the council-chamber of Fate. This, then, is the law of my confidence."

No answer came, she sitting there palish, her head, like his, on her chair-back, contemplating him offishly from the lofty height of eyes deprived of all expression; until he suggested to her "Tell me something else"; and, though still she said nothing, now she got up, stretched her arms down, as slugabeds do, drawing half a yawn, then, dashing afresh to the sash, pushed it up, to put her head out, and call down soft "You still there, Mr. Massingham? Must be drenched with dew."

When no reply came she laughed at the silence, so lightly, slightly, that the doctor could hardly catch that laugh of her heart.

And he waited, while, her back on him, she stayed there some time; he could hear her humming some hymn of "the Methodists."

Then, "But after all"—spinning inward upon him—"you can't be considered very practical, Dr. White-Deighton."

"This is an accusation!"—he smiled—"unexpected, since 'scientist' is 'practical man': for though some practical men, like blacksmiths, are not called 'scientists', they are scientists—just in proportion as they are practical."

She answered "Anyway, don't you know that an attempt has been made to get down to the body?"

His brow twitched a little. "There are many bodies, the most important being the heavenly bodies; but 'the' body, I think, means Sir Patrick O'Connor's.... Yes, I know of that attempt. What, then?"

"What was the attempt made for?—presumably to remove some organ or organs! And, whatever the motive, doesn't the attempt by itself prove to everybody that the man was poisoned?"

"Well, but there you do not flatter me: for I remember telling you that he was not poisoned."

Up she threw her eyes and hands... "Then, how do you explain the attempt to get down to him?"

"Yes, but people in general are keener on murder-mysteries than on the mysteries of nature: 'villagers', you see. I know one, a 'villager' to his finger-tips—Did you hear me call down 'Mr. Massingham' just now? Who is Massingham?"

"You will soon: detective-superintendent, one of four under Chief Constable Ritchie in charge of C.I.D., bulldog of 'the Yard', pretty grim when his teeth once grip: he is here. And is it now that you confess yourself 'eager' to go from England? But that would be a flight! as everyone would say—supposing you were permitted to. Aren't there such things as inquests, then? Don't you propose giving evidence?"

He moved his face petulantly. "I have already given evidence in a death-certificate—"

"But has nothing happened since? has nothing happened? Listen: what you have to do is to cable straight away to America, stating that you reject the Chair, can't go, since your country is roused against you—angry—and won't allow you to."

"Well, then"—faintly he smiled—"I must do as you bid.... But, as to my country being angry with me, that, I think, is not so—Agnes. Glad should I be, if it were angry!—with me or with anything. But it is incapable of anger. Like a dog it submits to the kicks inflicted upon it by the cliques of little sinners who trick and ridicule it: you cannot have an angry log. It does, I know, have attacks of mania, rages at shadows, and may masquerade in an aspect of wrath, like some harmless little lizards of the West Indies, which, to awe aggressors, swell out and awfully glare, with gaping jaws; but its 'angriness' is gas, unreal, like its notions, and the whole nexus of its uneducated soul. It will, however, as you say, be having its 'inquest': but after that inquest—"

"No, I'm not listening!"—smartly, with half-a-laugh, her palms flew up to hover over her ears: "the hour of trouble which you choose for approaching me in such a sense is strange, Dr. White-Deighton. Pray, concentrate on the trouble: I'd be light-minded, if I let you think that I listened one minute... Love and murder it is, mixed-up! You don't know what thoughts have passed through my head about you."

Now he frowned a little; suddenly stood up; bowed, saying "I will send medicines. He is bad: there will be a struggle. But do not fret—you get some sleep. Good night."

It was with something staggery in his gait that he moved away, so that her heart smote her, her head bent; and he was about to move out when she looked up to send out at him the muted shout: "So no strychnine is going to be found in him? That's reliable?"

On which his chin turned toward her with a certain dignity and distance to give the answer: "I have said so"—he was gone.

Chapter XII
FOOT-PRINTS

TEN minutes later her head fell, and for ten minutes was bent, asleep, at peace; but for her, otherwise, there was no "getting some sleep" during several nights: for, like that Cataline, she could trample upon sleep as upon a bad habit, and wash her lids in watchfulness—as now, when her sick sickened more upon her, when the doctor did not appear, being himself, it was said, in bed, and by herself she had to fight for a life, relying on flying interviews with Gilfillan for news as to all the O'Connor noise and todo: for, though she knew that now were the hours in which she should be about and ferreting for herself, her interest in the sick, in the dismay of Alan Walpole, whose father was his pal, held her; and only once she ran out to have a look at the coffin. Moreover, whatever Reason might scream to her, she no longer believed in her subconsciousness that O'Connor had been poisoned; as she calmly remarked to Gilfillan on the second day, "It is all a wasted hullabaloo: no poison is going to be found in him."

"You look got—by a gale. What's the matter? Been smiled upon by Miss Foy O'Connor? Or come into some fortune?"

"Now, you sibyl! But before I tell you I want to get you to promise—But stay: do you mean to sit there and assert that no strychnine is in O'Connor?"

"That's what old Asquith did, and he saw Hell and Dundee. Dear lady, the thing is as certain now as tomorrow's heartburn and Jermyn Street dun. Needn't wait long to see! The country's too pressing to know, can't be kept in the dark: I hear from London that something is already being whispered in the clubs—may fly like fire into tonight's papers: for experts and their assistants are half human, and have tongues."

"Clubs are likely to be disappointed," she replied. "There's mystery here, that's clear—pretty deep; but, if there's poison in him, everlasting hills are a myth... Perhaps they are—cloth-of-vision—dream-stuff —I don't know."

He gazed out on the rectory garden; then, confronting her: "Someone, then, has been telling you again that no poison will be found?... And you believe what people tell you!"

Now he paced a little about, thinking of it, and suddenly sat by her, with "Say, let's make a bet. You are as sure as the everlasting hills that he was not poisoned: let's bet: if he was poisoned"—he kissed her hand hastily—"you marry me within a month: I know you like me. If he was not poisoned, I hand you a cheque for half-a-million dollars."

Now her eyes went bright. She muttered agaze "I could have a hospital of my own... could buy Clonnach..."

And quickly he kissed her hand; sprang up, paced; anon his chest swelled, agitated.

Silence. She, too, was rather paled, sitting there. Then: "Well, go on, the foot-prints"—with chin on fists now, to listen with quiet eyes, speaking little, thinking of things.

And he: "First tell me what you think of this: you know the Ursuline, Sister Lola? I'm fresh from her—seems to have been drugged!—that's her impression—night before the funeral. Ought to have been saying prayers by the coffin—but went to sleep! In the morning woke with headache—"

"Oh, you know! You never mentioned...! And what in the world do you make of that?"

"Oh, well!... As to the foot-prints, one lot was made by the man who cried out 'if I wasn't the fool!' on broadcasting night—there's no doubt—Delvin Cummings Monk; and with his was another foot—a gentleman's."

"Fully. The boots of one had rubber heels, the other's were two sizes smaller, and were White-Deighton's—Massingham lets me tell you, it is between us three. White-Deighton himself is in 'in bed', but Massingham got at his boots, and has other knowledge, I can see, in respect of White-Deighton. Whitewashed Deighton—with his Olympian looks: whited sepulchre. And that Monk of ours—deep, you know. All that patter about 'the tumblers cracking on us', the Irish naivete—deep stuff. Massingham and I examined him together yesterday—he's in bed, panting, nervous wreck—and when asked 'how many pairs of boots have you?', he answered 'three'; Massingham said 'I've only seen two'; and when no more than two could be discovered Devlin played puzzlement like Coquelin. But his forethought is inferior to his acting: it would have been a lesser risk to say 'two' pairs, and, if a housemaid said 'three', he could have denied. Anyway, he had had three, the dabbled pair being probably now in the lake... And something else, it now transpires, is missing: two bits of board that lay over that little well near the estate-workshop—vanished on broadcasting night apparently; they're not on the lake. But no dabbled clothes—no sign: we've ransacked Clonnach, down to Mrs. Sayce's and Miss O'Connor's inmost petticoats—they being away, gone to London. As to our doctor's boots, he has only two pairs—so his housekeeper says—both of which show traces of graveyard-soil; but, then, his house is in the same soil."

Broody, musing, Agnes listened; and "Oh, well" she sighed, standing up, "I must turn you away now—"

"One minute, I haven't told you"—He stepped close to say low "See here, I am now among the mighty—since last night's post. Ever heard of Peter E. Stickney?—my mother's uncle—has left me half-a-million dollars."

Agnes clapped hands. "Didn't I say that you had come into a fortune? Silly-headed Agnes, to see it, and say it, without realising it! Yes! we know more than we think we know: there's a well inside where truth lives; but no bucket: we only get well's evaporation... Half-a-million! My! Or Mine! say: for I shall be winning the bet... You who are always so down upon the gods! Now you see: the gods are Christian gods, they bless them that curse them."

"Yes, poison or no poison. The minute I read the letter I remembered your love for Clonnach, and I said Til try to buy little old Clonnach for her and me to live in.'"

"But I didn't hope—Now I have you: for it's I who's going to win, and this doubles my half-million: now I am a millionaire and more, having a better half added"—this with a soulfulness of tone so dissimilar from his usual cynicism, that it brought water to her lids, and she asked "Is my value so millionfold?... But, then, I seem to love people who are in trouble best—love you more when you pretend to have the stomach-ache—"

"But I must run now—bye, goodbye..." she dashed away inward, plying her eyes with arch wiles, as she vanished.

Chapter XIII
IN THE GRAVE

IN the second forenoon following she saw the eyes of yet an adorer, when the rector, his crisis past, kissed her hands, said "You angel!"—and she was upbraiding him for sitting up when the doctor was suddenly with them.

She noted the glove now gone from him, a mark of the crucified in his palm, and, on asking if he was now well, was answered "Better than you, I can see; you must now have some rest"; nor could she resist his insistence, went away with him through the rectory-grounds—a "scenting day," frosty for hunting—neither speaking much, she nervous lest he should refer afresh to personal affections; and so out to the road, where she stopped over a cock-sparrow stretched dead, water springing to her lids at it... "So much joy of heart cut short! he just missed this jolly morning"; then "Never mind, so He giveth his beloved sleep"; then "Not a sparrow falleth without God"; and to the doctor "Is that a scientific fact, Doctor?"

He answered "Of course. To an intellect a little scientific an event without God is inconceivable: for events are motions, and motion is due to Force, or 'God'."

Here she stumbled a little, and he said "Why, you can hardly walk. Take my arm"; upon which she shot a glance at him, hesitated, took his arm. Then: "But how is God 'interested' in the fall of a sparrow, yet not 'interested' in the murder of a man?—as you have said."

He smiled. "But you are confounding two unrelated things. I said that God is 'interested' only in motions—as we see, since Force does nothing else than produce motions, and the universe is a universe of motions, a rush and a flush, electric, trilling, flitting, at every point: this lane, apparently so steadfast, those dead 'at rest' in there—they are, in fact, tearing in headlong haste, infatuated, as wholes, and in every portion. Now, among other motions is a climb of Life, an 'evolution'; and unless the manner of a death—through a hawk, through sickness, through murder—could somehow affect this motion of Life, God could not be 'interested' in the murder as a murder, since Force is 'interested' only in motions. But in the physics of the murder, in the motions involved, God is as infinitely 'interested' as in the fall of a sparrow or of an arrow: with dead perfection God explodes the gun, God with dead perfection splits the gullet, God's fingers close the lids of His murdered worm. This, then, is the law as to God's 'interest.'"

"Yet I can conceive—" She stopped at the trotting irruption of a party of four, one in scarlet, among them Alan Walpole and Foy O'Connor engaged in talk; till Foy's eyes lighted upon Agnes on the doctor's arm, upon which her flesh changed to pallor, and she clutched in such a spasm at her reins, that her animal reared.

When the group passed close to the two on foot, and hats were raised, she was gazing straight ahead with a grim rigidity of face, while Agnes was thinking vindictively within herself "We came home last night, then, and the country-air pales us? Someone preferred to us, girls! we don't like that, we girls, turns us pale as death, it does, when someone is preferred, is preferred, to us!.".. then hastily, to camouflage these thoughts, as though the doctor could see them: "Yes... motions... God interested only in motions: so unless a murder could hurt the climb of Life... By the way, I promised a friend to ask you, Doctor: if a country is over-populated, and you murder a third, will that benefit Society?"

He smiled, answering "Surely, that would depend on which third was murdered. You must not murder many of the best workers; but, if you murdered dukes, the useless, the infected, that would bless; or, if the murdered third were males, though some best workers were among them, that would bless: this is why war, drunken and infantile as war is, still results in good, making true the common saying that 'God takes care of drunkards and babies'—though, of course, He takes more care of the sober and adult."

"Well, because males—No, I won't tell you: think it out for yourself, and you tell me when next we meet. Or do you say that a 'detective' is a person likely to detect truth in respect of murders, but deprived of eyes to detect truth in general?"

"Oh, no, I don't say so—truth is truth... Very well, I will find out—'good to kill males.'.."

"Human males," he told her, "not other males... To guide your thinking, I give you this hint: that one or the other sex is 'adorned'—with colours, song, manes, costumes—while one is 'unadorned'; and, in the choosing of mates, it is the unadorned which chooses."

They were at the little path of dalles which leads up to the lychgate, and in she sped, under the gate-roof, past the ancient "stocks" that are there, and presently was at the empty grave...

She had meant to stay some minutes, but was there hours, having found against the sycamore a spade, with which she had gone down into the grave, tripping down on the slant dug by the unauthorized hand, then a jump down a step-of-marl which was now there: nobody now about in the graveyard, only a certain ghost of Nobody permeating its lonesomeness; and down in that hole in the ground emotions, half-notions, arose in her which rather paled her face, she anon glancing up to catch Sir Patrick's face gazing down upon her from the grave's edge. "Mustn't be funky," she muttered, but was, hearing the sycamore above uttering the thing that trees sing, and, singing, swing to, when breezes of the evening breathe, hearing that monody of the waterfalls, that noised and noised on the same theme that moved all the greenery to greatness of music, and haunted all the mood of that grave.

Highly touchy and jumpy from her childhood as regards "the supernatural," little taste she had for graves; but "I'll stick it," she said to herself, and did; and, though she came up palish, came with a light in her eyes, excited, looking down at a brass screw that now lay in the marl that dabbled her palm.

Haste was in her gait, as she made toward the graveyard back-steps, where a boat lay: in which she paddled under the graveyard-wall toward the Old House landing-steps, only stopping some moments to ponder upon the fact of the vanishing of a boat which had before caused her some wonderment—anchored there under the wall with a cord-and-stone, empty but for its oars—gone now. But now, as she paddled on, the light in her eyes died out, her back abandoned itself, her forehead dropped; she murmured those words of world-burden and smart of heart once sighed by that Anne Askew whom she admired, "With as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job..."

Then through Clonnach, down the "private road," where she came across Inspector Winter pacing carefully "in step" with Massingham, and said in herself, as to Winter, "No, you won't live long," he looked so ill; and here she began to be surprised at the aspect of things, Adversane being now about as populous as on some market-day, because of a consciousness of "the inquest" which all the winds wafted abroad. And, as she walked along the street, there were greetings to receive her reappearance—greetings whose warmth egregiously pleased a certain nerve of comradeship and democracy that was inherent in the home-made brew of her being: for she had been missed, and she just liked this, finding some charm in the common man, a joy in "common" things: so that, on arriving at home, her eyes brightened afresh when her Lizzie Davis presented her with "pig-meat," six eggs, a fowl, flowers—offerings to her from Tom or Florry; "the dears!" she cried out, and left off clapping to dash a tear from her eyes.

Chapter XIV
POISON

IT was almost five o'clock. Agnes was moving about her darkling "parlour" with slow steps, profoundly musing, when a loud knocking stopped her, and in hurried Gilfillan, blurting out on breaths of haste "Here you are: it is all out!"

She could just see to read the thing at the window; and chill she went, standing there on knees which shivered beneath her.

Nor had she quite finished when—another knock: a long telegram for her from her Goss & Bonner.

This, too, she mutely read at the window; but it told no more than Gilfillan's slips.

It appeared that a special edition in London had published news of the O'Connor autopsy: and the ascertained facts were these:

Staining his pyjamas, some kind of animal-slime, yellow matter—unaccountably there.

Standing stiff, statuesque, Agnes gazed, underlooking, into Gilfillan's eyes, who gazed into her eyes.... She muttered "So you've won the bet."

"Oh, surely... But mercurochrome—not a word about strychnine—ought to be strychnine! as on the urn... Where on earth are we?"

That night she kept vigil. When Lizzie Davis rapped, had no reply, pried in, could descry a head on the table, and asked "Shall I light your lamp?," Agnes, starting up from depths of reverie, laughed crazily a little, said no, and presently was down in the depths of reverie afresh; brow on table; angel's-visits of fire-shine blushing flyingly upon her skull's bulk of architecture, upon her neck down as "on the block," her "bun" of bulbs mounting out of a hollow, like a mosque built at a hill's bottom.

And sound ceased: no feet any more moved past; only, from afar, tollings of the church-clock told the milestones of the night's journey in eternity; and anon voices of midnight winds forlorn, which haunted the chimney's hollow, hummed snatches of anthem, hushed.

When she stood up the fire was dying; she threw-on some fuel, moved about; and presently, with a smile, letting her forehead drop, sighed "Oh, dear, my poor headpiece..."

Later, at the window, she was gazing a little at the congregation of the constellations gliding ever westward, like lights of a navy gliding against the gait of navies of cloud bound eastward, and she breathed to that big business "God, help me... help me..."

Presently, pacing, she found herself muttering "There may be another death to come... may be."

But about the hour of daybreak she was down on the floor, foredone, seated against a seedy little sofa of pegamoid; and now her wearied head was asleep.

A species of sleep: for her eyes were not quite closed—she was conscious of this fact afterwards: and in her sleep (if it was sleep) something "pretty rummy," as she said in her racy way, some species of revelation—"trance," "clairvoyance," apocalypse—seems to have happened (overdriven as her psychology was), within the billowing vat of her Subconscious.

Of the tragedy her dream was: and in that dreaming she knew—or she imagined afterwards that she knew—the whole truth of the drama of O'Connor's cutting-off, saw it all like a landscape lit, every fact fitting in, every motive known: and in that country's moonshine in which her foot roamed she muttered "So this is how it was."

When daylight entered into her slits of eye-white uncovered, she moved a little, half awoke, and now found her mouth drowsily muttering something—a rhymed something—which, without any sense of surprise, she recited to its end; but then, suddenly surprised at herself, her eyes widened, and up she sprang, glancing about with quick-blinking lids, ghast, half-laughing...

In those same moments she was aware that she had just known the whole story: and she let herself down on the sofa's edge to remember what it was that she had just known...

But in one minute she understood that between her and it now was a great gulf fixed—that nothing of it would she ever more remember. The name of the star that that drama of fantasy had transacted itself on was the Sanscrit for "Far"; it slipped her finger-tip; and the more she stretched her efforts into the realm of nothingness to be related afresh with its strangeness, the more hopelessly, in general, it slipped into the strangeness of nothingness, its home. There were moments when, with half a gasp of hope, she half thought that she had got it, but it was gone again, deeper than ever away into the abysm of its limbo.

Only the rhyme of her half-waked state remained: each syllable of it she could repeat—did again and again repeat:

This is the house that Bill built.
And this is the patron—oh, conchite his brows!—
That admonished the priest "Be true to your vows"
That proffered the sip
That solaced the lip
That published the faith
That failed—not its wraith
That ended the bee
That harboured the flea
That bit the wight
That rued the night
That drew down on the house
That Bill built.

And agaze sat Agnes... "Fearfully and wonderfully made we are... 'Patron.'.. 'Oh, conchite his brows.'.. what does 'conchite' mean? Is there such a word?—never heard it! Oh, but how abstruse!"—throwing-up eyes of reproach—"with bees and fleas in it. If I could make head or tail of this thing, I'd know all, sure as I sit here; as it is, am worse off than ever—two enigmas now, instead of one... 'priest'... which priest?... 'faith'... the faith failed, but its wraith didn't... what is the wraith of a faith, my goodness?... the wraith—of the faith—ended—the bee... but which bee, after all? Oh, no, that bee-ts me!... 'bee harboured the flea', the bee did... and flea 'bit the wight that rued the night'... the 'night' must be the poisoning-night; what other night? 'that drew down on the house that Bill'—why Bill?... who is Bill? House that Agnes built, and has gone and lost the key of... And to think that six minutes ago I knew it all, yes, knew it, and can't go back one tick... oh, well, forward, then."

Chapter XV
THE BLACK BOX

AND now the inquest-whirl on her: days of it, this having to be adjourned because of the vanishing, firstly of Monk, then of Inspector Winter: and the noise that this business caused cannot be told, for nobody could begin to understand, or to guess, anything of it.

The inquest was going the usual course of inquests; Mr. E. M. McKeag, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, had been questioning half-an-hour; Sir James Jessop, Medical Adviser to the Home Office, had given evidence, as had Prof. Roberts, the pathologist, of Bristol University, as to the string-marks round the ankles, the wound in the foot, the strange slime, etc.—it was at the Union and Village Institute in Adversane, in a room at the top of a slight external-stair of iron; and now the name of Monk was cried. But no answer; an official shouted down from the stair to the crowd in the yard: no answer; whereupon Dr. E. P. Proctor, the coroner, struck his table to remark "If the man delays the proceedings further, I have powers which he will feel to his cost"; and Massingham, who had already packed off a constable to ferret for Monk, now muttered near Winter's ear "Better go yourself—bring the man by the scruff of his neck." So Winter went to bring Monk in that way.

Then room and yard waited for Monk to come—at any rate, for Winter to come; but neither Monk came nor Winter came.

When O'Loughlin, the footman, was called Agnes was down in an outhouse where the coffin lay all spoiled and soppy behind a hanging, with a constable on guard; and she ran out across the yard, up the stair, to hear O'Loughlin tell of his following Hester Hayes toward The Old House on the death-night, to see where she was going to; of his running back to call Monk to hear the Banshee; of the flood's coming...

Asked by Mr. McKeag if he had spoken with the baronet that last day, he replied "I did, Sir. That was near four in the afternoon. He was in the laboratory, sitting before the shelf that the black box is on; it's reading a book he was; he had the black box open, with books in it, and books beside it; and, as I did be passing through, he muttered over the book he was reading 'Is that yourself, O'Loughlin?' he said—"

Asked "What box is this that you call 'the black box'?," the witness answered "An old box it is, like a lady's work-box or some such, but it has carvings and brass on it, and 'the black box' is what I was always calling it; but the baronet would call it 'the Florentine box'; and I had orders from him never to be touching of it."

"I do not. I would be wondering at an odd time what might be within in it, for himself kept the key; but that afternoon I laid my mind down to it that it would be books he'd keep in it. And there he sat, looking at one of the books; but he stopped me in passing through, and gave me the full of my hands of books to throw on the fire for him —for he'd never go nigh a fire himself on the coldest day—"

"I'd not be knowing that, Sir... Little books they'd be in paper covers—then more he gave me, three lots, till every book was on the fire. And in the burning of them he'd keep speaking to me: he said did ever Monk send me to fetch the doctor for him, I'd only pretend to go, he said, not go; and I heard him say 'That doctor will be doing for me'."

Though this was known before, the room uttered a muttering at it, as when woods are troubled. Only the doctor, who was reading a pamphlet, continued to read aloof, with two finger-tips at that brow of his, whose roundness dominated his countenance and beard, and in any roomful of men stood out like the moon among ten thousand: so he did not see that Gilfillan, seated near him with a notebook, fixed upon him a look which indicated vindictiveness; but Agnes, prospecting with lifted chin, saw, and thought "Oh, my fault! there is jealousy..."

At the same time she saw Massingham making on his toes toward her, to say at her ear "Have you seen this 'black box'?"

And next came E. L. Wales, the undertaker, who, when asked if it was he who had sawn through the coffin's bottom in two places, answered "No."

Asked if it was not odd that, in removing the coffin to the hearse, he had not observed the sawings, his answer was: "It might have been odd, if this had been an ordinary coffin, for then the sawings would have cut into the coffin's sides... I should explain that the sides of coffins are kerfed, and nailed-on to the bottom, which is smaller than the cover—"

"'Kerfed.'.. means that saw-cuts are made half-through the coffin's sides inside: this removes enough sawdust to make the elm flexible, then the coffin's sides can be nailed-on to the bottom's sides. But in this coffin each side was in two pieces, not in one, as usual, and the bottom was screwed-on under the sides—clumsy affair, for the other way is a remarkable invention in carpentry."

It was Monk, the house-steward, he answered, who had so instructed him; had said that he wanted everything to be "strictly Irish."..

And now again, as the undertaker withdrew, Massingham stepped out to the stair-head to look abroad for Monk—for Winter! but still no Monk, no Winter, though an hour had passed; and now, though the door stood open, the court was stuffy; the afternoon dull, becalmed.

So now the coroner, having issued a burial-order, adjourned, bidding the jury "hold themselves in readiness" to be summoned at any moment.

Whereupon with pressing steps Massingham set out for Clonnach, and behind him pressed Gilfillan with Agnes, who, on entering Clonnach, sighed "Well, this is the house that Bill built"—she having now come to the conclusion that the "Bill" of her dream-rhyme must be one Lord William Billingham, who, by assassinating a duellist at The Old House, had "caused" The New House to be built; and, as she and Gilfillan entered, Massingham, who was talking under the hall-lantern to Marie Moran, the lady's-maid, turned to say to them "Monk not here! This young lady saw him go through The New Garden toward The Old House about two o'clock, and near three Winter went the same way. So where are they? Where's Winter?"—with an awe of voice.

"Ah, don't ask me," murmured Agnes, upon whom he had turned upbraidingly in an intensity of perplexity that raised his nose to an expression of disgust as at ugly odours; and he turned again to ask the French girl where she had been when she had seen them...

"Sewing in the New Garden grotto," she answered... "Miss O'Connor had bidden me take the air there, and from there I saw them both, at different times, pass across the windows of Miss O'Connor's bedroom, then across a window of the laboratory, then through the garden toward The Old House"—smoothing with a finger-tip her left cheek, in which pain was habitual.

"Yes. Miss O'Connor, who is indisposed, must have directed that he be led up to her."

Upstairs they passed down the corridor that runs front-to-back to a cross-corridor, and into the laboratory, Gilfillan, meantime, asking Marie how Monk had looked in the garden: "Pale, eh? flurried?"

"He also ran... But they passed some distance from where I sat." She went in to Foy.

Now Massingham, awaiting her coming back, paced the laboratory, meditating with his nostrils offended; and suddenly said to Agnes "Well, where is this precious 'black box' of O'Loughlin?"

"I told you there is no black box"—from Massingham. "Well, but there was...Yes, look: here's the dust-mark..."

She pointed at an oblong less dusty within dust on a bottom shelf—an oblong distinctly outlined, for the baronet had had an antipathy to dusting in his laboratory; and this group of shelves, made of glass, in an obscure spot, was inveterately thick with dust.

"Ask Miss O'Connor—perhaps she has moved it," Agnes suggested, as Marie now reentered to say "Miss O'Connor will see Mr. Massingham"; upon which Massingham went out; and Agnes, having glanced about the laboratory for the box, then asked Marie if she knew who had removed it.

Marie's answer was not prompt; and Agnes, glancing at her, saw in her great grey eyes a kind of vagueness, a strange expression—of introspection, reverie, as she gave the reply "I myself put a box there this morning."

And Agnes: "There were some shreds of a leaf in it which I meant to piece together, and didn't—O! always too late."

At this point Massingham reentered, saying "Miss O'Connor doesn't know... Monk came to her saying that suspicion was on him, that he was afraid of the inquest, and she told him he must not think of running away; then came Winter for Monk, and she told Winter she had no notion where Monk was... that's all. So where is Winter?"

"Box?... Oh, aye, the black box... She says she moved it—took it into her boudoir to use as a tool-box: that's why I never saw it, I suppose. But it was too small for a tool-box, so she told this young lady to put it back in its place this morning; and nobody has passed through since, except Monk, Winter, and White-Deighton."

"'Back in its place'?" Agnes muttered; then to Marie "And you put it back on this shelf?"

Marie's brow had an expression of trouble before she pointed to the dust-mark, to say "Just there I put it"—with a certain murmurousness of sleepy people, so that Agnes frowned at her a little, and in the next moment dropped to kneeling at the shelf, to gloat close over its dusty glass. Gilfillan, meantime, was asking Marie if Monk had had a parcel when running through the garden? and when she answered "Yes, he had a parcel," he then said, "I guess."

Monk took the box to put victuals and things in, "He is hiding in The Old House."

"Man alive, what for?" Massingham demanded, pestered: "Winter, no; he'd not do that. More likely Dr. White-Deighton... Did you see the doctor go away when he left Miss O'Connor?"—to Marie.

Agnes' eyes were bright, flitting from one to the other, as each spoke; and now she asked Marie "When was the doctor called?"

At the same time Massingham was remarking "Well, we can soon know where Monk at least is, if he has taken the Old House keys."

He started off to look, followed by Gilfillan and Marie—through the baronet's bedroom to the cupboard in Monk's room, where Massingham had seen the mass of antique rust that the keys were; while Agnes, left alone, stuck a pin within the black-box dust-mark, then over the pin fixed with pins a newspaper which she had. Close by the dust-mark stood a bowl containing sulphate-of-copper crystals, and this she moved to another spot, that the bowl's dust-mark might gather dust; then she tripped after Massingham, to hear him saying at Monk's cupboard "Keys gone, you see; come on—to The Old House..."

Chapter XVI
THE OLD HOUSE

When they were within the waters' noising, whose soliloquy now seemed to discourse of dark deeds and disasters, her lips opened to utter something, but uttered nothing.

Now they were in that home of gloominess, like cathedral-aisles, over-roofed by the grove of old trees which brooded over the approach to The Old House; and here they stood still to speak to an antique being named Pete Greet, who, gathering beech-mast, thinking his thoughts, had the habit of haunting these solitudes, as though what the waters always chaunted had lodged in his heart, and charmed him; and he let his lips stir to murmur "Aye, I did see a man go in, and another man after."

Farther on the three halted again at "The Causeway"—this leading fifteen yards through water to a portal which is a block of oak, rough with holes, standing now half-open in its profound ouch under the frown of an arch; and, as Massingham made to move toward it over the causeway, at last Agnes came to the point of speaking: "I don't want to go... Be prepared for a shock: I think there's a dead body in there..."

"Dear me, you say a thing like that? The place has been ransacked... You 'think'—haven't seen—"

"'Conclude.'.. Well, this is news sprung upon one. May I ask how long you have been thinking this?"

"No doubt I am less above-board than I might be"—looking away—"I confess to many defects."

"Question of sex, Massingham," Gilfillan put in: "East is East, and Eve is Eve: they like to be on their little own, and get there first... But you might have given me the hint, Agnes."

"I did"—sullenly—"I said 'Hester Hayes may be behind those bastions'; but Massingham said it couldn't be."

"Dear me"—from Massingham; upon which Gilfillan's face pinked a little; and he muttered "I reckon there's some death-trap in that place, or some apparition that petrifies people. Hester Hayes went, and now Winter... Don't you go alone, Massingham."

"Well, it might be as well, as you say, to have force at hand... I'll get some constables."

With smart steps he then left the others, who now strolled round by the south side of the pile to its (west) back-view, night now come—gloomy night, no moon, some drizzle sprinkling; and Gilfillan was saying "You are a secretive thing, letting not your left hand know—Why do you 'conclude' that Hester?"

And he, peering, breathed "Close down to the surface... someone holding a lantern overboard, looking at something in the water."

"For, not at," Agnes whispered: "light moves a little: tied to the boat's bow, I think."

"Come"—they went trotting back round to the east side, and to the landing-steps at the north-east, to leap into a boat, and to paddle west, south, in haste.

As they cleared the pile's north-west corner, afresh the light came into sight; but, as they made without sound for it, it vanished.

"Don't ask me"—her face in a posture of crying—"Oh, dear, there is death in the air of this place"—she suddenly covered her eyes.

And some time they lingered on the water, until, seeing a throng of lights on land, they went back and up, to find Massingham and three constables, followed by a mob: for it had now got abroad that Monk and Winter had gone into The Old House, and not come out—which was nothing astonishing to The Three Villages, always infected as they were with a sort of awe of the stronghold, as of some sinister spirit; and with bated breath the flocks and knots of them remained among the tree-boles, agaze at the battlements, some lanterns among them showing up patches of glow frizzed with drizzle-filigree, while Massingham and his three, engulfed within the citadel's wilderness, were seeing or undergoing what none knew; and "Tom" Price, watching the pile in the group that had gathered round Agnes, dropped at her ear "Did you hear tell of Willie Yates? When I did be a boy that was—him dreamed one night that there's gold in The Old House, and I remember my father warning him not to go in; er said no, er wouldn't; but the lad was possessed with it, and some months afterwards er did, with a dog—tore himself, er did, out of the hands of them that held him back: and er was never seen again, nor the dog. Some say he was drowned—"

"Yes, I know about Willie Yates," Agnes murmured; and at the same time Gilfillan exclaimed "There they come!"— and trotted forward.

He, with other pressmen, remained some minutes on the causeway in converse with the officers, who then came on, Massingham saying to some "Go along home; nothing in there"; and to Agnes, as he passed away, "Nothing!—nobody."

Then came Gilfillan back to her with "There's nobody... You were wrong about Hester Hayes."

"Yes, they found the keys; and they found some wet on one floor—near that water-alley that you call 'Traitor's Gate': the man who had that lantern in the boat may have gone there after giving us the slip. I told Massingham about it: now he is going to drag the lake."

"Well, God give us eyes in our head... This is the house that Bill built... I am sad—going home."

But again the next forenoon she was there, to see knots of people agaze at the ancient walls, at constables on guard, at the waters that kept dark whatever lay in them: and so for days; among the watchers after dark being Jim Davis, a boy whom she paid to watch at the castle-back, to see if the solitary lantern should reappear on the water; and daily, in going to The Old House, she stopped at The New House, to pick up the paper laid by her over the black box dust-mark: for the box had strangely vanished, and she desired to find out when, and why. The dust-mark had not itself been free of dust when she had first placed the paper over it; this dust she daily compared with the dust that had since gathered on the spot whence she had removed a bowl; and she was using photographic plates to measure the growing likeness of the two thicknesses of dust on the glass shelf. Then on to The Old House, to gaze with the groups that gazed at the walls, the waters, the dragging with grapnels, then with drag-nets and dredge; for, after the second day when the grapnels failed, Massingham had all the three going, convinced now of something hidden within those waters: as he said to Gilfillan and Agnes, with nostrils gone offended at the perplexity in things, "It is hard to believe... those two men!... a country on the look-out, their photos in every paper, a flying-squad in high-power cars scouring the county—and one of them in uniform, the other in a cutaway waistcoat—clearly-marked... and they must eat... there's nowhere for them to be...."

Agnes, scarcely listening, was gazing up into the cedar, sighing to its sighing "When the bough breaks the cradle will fall..."

But Gilfillan said "If anyone is in the water, he has a hat, and, when his hair falls out, the hat will float"—a prophecy that came true the very next day, the second day of the inquest, which was taking place in that upper chamber at the stair-top, when a messenger ran to it with the news of a hat found—Monk's: and immediately the rumour of it ran like wind in wheat through the court.

Giving evidence then was Nurse Joyce, after whom it was White-Deighton himself who was called, and, as he moved, all the room stood mute at him: for stronger than the gale of animosity which was everywhere at present raging against his head was some impression which his presence gave of a being made of nobler stuff than men—an impression not strange, since he was such that he had added some equations to the mathematics of physics, heaving a planet some feet up with his lever. And he was there on view some time, his countenance the home of calm, but paled, pained, rather drawn; his replies mild, kindly...

Asked how often he saw the body, he answered "Twice"; but when asked "Why the second time?" his answer was "I will not say."

But was not this an unusual reticence in a medical man who was an officer of a Poor Law Union, on three Committees, Dispensary Doctor to a Board of Guardians, an Almshouse Governor?—it was unusual before a Court?

To this no answer; and to the question: "Twice, then, you looked upon a death due to three grains of mercurochrome 220, yet observed no sign of poison?" he answered "No."

He was not "represented by counsel": and when it was over he went away, passing near her, but without a look, his brow bent.

This caused her to say to Gilfillan, as they presently made in haste for The Fishponds, "Don't you mention to anyone yet about you and me being—engaged. But, ah! I think you have already... Have you?"

He answered "Well, yes, I happened to hint it to White-Deighton in the course—But he had known before."

"Ah... Did she sing a triumph-song like Miriam? Then she got a 'pain in her side', sent for him, and told him then... The pain was in her right side, since the pleasure was in her left. But, ah! how fatal... You heard him say 'inefficiency', and smile? When some men condemn themselves they condemn themselves to death."

"Worse? To him, I am sure, nothing is half so bad! His 'inefficient' means 'good-for-nothing', 'old rags.' No, it was hardly considerate of you to tell—"

"I don't know about 'net.'.. But, if he happened to be, why bring an added trouble upon a bowed head... kick a man when he is down? Blessed are the merciful; let's be merciful."

He, piqued, let himself say "To the unmerciful—as O'Connor, who disliked his medicine, seems to have considered him."

"Well, if you like to be bitter... O'Connor differed there from The Three Villages... I go in here—meet you at The Fishponds"—"here" being Winter's cottage, in which she sat some time, administering comfort: "Be brave! hope still"—watching, meantime, that tearful face of Mrs. Winter, seeking to read in it some indication as to whether Winter was in secret communication with his home; and she said in the end "The 'parcel' he had with him may have been a 'black box' which is missing from Clonnach; but I will soon know: for I have reason to say that the box has been buried—in one or other of seven places in the graveyard; and I am beginning to dig, to get it"—a statement which, she knew, would be conveyed to Winter in his hiding, in case the wife did know Winter's whereabout; Winter would then attempt to dig up, and be caught in the attempt. And though the statement pretended to rather more acumen than she really possessed, she meant to make it to everyone—except the lost Monk—who might possibly have abstracted the black box.

Then she was off for The Fishponds; and, in going up the Clonnach avenue, met Sir P. H. Potts, the Commissioner, coming with Gilfillan and with Massingham, who exhibited to her the hat found in the water, saying "That water is not motionless—there is an undertow: that's why we haven't fished up what is doubtless there; now we mean to keep more to the edges. They've just netted one old thigh-bone—"

"That is Willie Yates'," Agnes said: "drowned thirty years ago"—turning in her hand the sodden bowler-hat, unwrapped from an oblong of canvas; and she had begun to say "Yes, this is Monk's—" when a little something—half-an-exclamation-—escaped her.

She blushed a little in answering "I thought the water—Oh, no, it is nothing."

And Gilfillan, eyeing aside at her, said in himself "She hath an eye or two, this lady fair, but lets not the left know what the right spyeth..."

When she went on her way she met Alan Walpole, at the house-back, he having been watching the waters, and he exclaimed at her "I felt that you would be coming!," then went with her toward The Old House over a carpet of fallen foliage in the coverts in half-warm sunshine of Autumn-afternoon, which was touched with some heartache of parting. They found throngs of watchers loitering about the water, and no boats now at the landing-steps: so, as she wanted to go into the graveyard, they walked under its east wall to reach the lychgate—rather rough ground about there, over-grown, he holding her hand; and there he told her "Dad says I shall go melancholy, if you aren't good to me."

With a tenderness on her pensive lids, she pensively said "We desire and admire, strive and cry—a pretty sorrowful lot, after all. But wait, hope—a million years, one tick of God's clock—then we shall be having most things—in a mood of music, too, boozified, caring not a damn, with bells on our fingers, bells on our toes. Question of knowing. When bough breaks cradle 'must' fall, because baby doesn't know how to stop it—hence his evil case. There's no 'mystery of evil', look: 'evil' is pain; but an all-knowing being is in bliss: so 'evil' is lack of knowledge. And since knowledge is of necessity a growth—for there can't be an omniscient amoeba or monkey—that explains 'mystery of evil.' Eight nights a month the cave-men stumbled: but then lanterns were invented; still one couldn't see when winds were stormy: but then pocket-lamps were invented, which no storm can quench; and in time we shall be having two moonlights every night. Haven't long begun to know—hence our 'evil.' And, meantime, God sends us a Redeemer from evil, His own Son, the miner of His truth, the man of science. Aye, I begin to see, to see... You wait a million years."

"Oh, I say," Alan Walpole lamented, "you will be dead, and then there will be nobody. You might marry meantime —only your sons could invent two moons."

"Let go my hand, poor dear"—a sigh!—"have nothing sweet now to say to you... I wish, I wish, 'tis all in vain, I wish I was a maid again...," they now entering the lychgate in the north wall; and presently, after taking spades out of the church-tower, she marked out a spot at a grave-foot for him to dig a hole big as the black box, while she dug another—he wondering why!

Then back to Clonnach New House, where they separated, she going up to the laboratory, to take off the paper from the black box dust-mark, and compare the dust in it with the dust that had now collected in the dust-mark of a bowl which she had moved. But the eye could only divine, could not measure, the difference between the fiftieth of a millimetre and the fifty-oneth, and she wished to measure. This had baffled her awhile; but, finally, after consultation with her brother, Wesley, she had decided on light-rays, and had sent for sensitized plates. So now, lying on the floor under the shelf, she held up against the shelf a camera having instantaneous shutter and iris diaphragm, to photograph a cork gummed to the under-surface of the second shelf from the floor, above the box's dust-mark; then to photograph another cork gummed above the bowl's dust-mark: midway between the two corks being a pocket-lamp hanging by a string from the corks, the lamp's rays struggling down through the two dusts, and through the lowest shelf's glass, to the photographic plates; then, by comparison of the two photographs, she could see, to the millionth of a millimetre the relation between the two thicknesses of dust; and since she knew how many hours the bowl's dust-mark had been gathering dust, she was gradually getting to know how long the box's dust-mark had been gathering dust. But she did it always in haste and stealth, not wishing to be seen; and this day, as she was picking herself out and up, Miss O'Connor came sauntering through with her Marie, who carried towels, loofas, poudres, rouges, aromas, the mistress in a Moorish mood, shimmering in jumper-pyjamas of silk, the jumper rose-pink, the trousers ruby, gathered-in about the ankles, she looking a stripling prince of Paz, pretty to kiss one's fingers at; and in her whispering of winds when they whisper through willow-whips, she whispered "What are you doing down there?" Then at once, peering near, "Oh, I see... dust-marks... photography... yes, that's clever. But, then, you are not allowed to stick-on corks, or make any changes."

Agnes sprang up, answering "But how strict! It is partly for you—trying to discover when that box was removed. You took it for a tool-box, then didn't want it, and your Marie says that she put it back in its place that day that Monk disappeared: but there is some mistake, she must have put it somewhere else, for, if she had put it here, the box would have made a new mark in the dust—unless she laid it carefully on the old dust-mark. Anyway, I have already reason to say that the box has been buried—in one or other of seven places in the graveyard; and I am beginning to dig: so you may soon have it back."

In her automatic manner of tossing cigarettes off her Foy tossed one, asking "Buried for what? By whom?"

"No, too short for me. You say 'Ivor', since you like shortness, though he seems to like longness—of hair, anyway."

And Foy: "What do you know about his likes? You are engaged to that Gilfillan. He is full of it—blurted it out to me."

"Yes," Agnes retorted, "and the news gave you a pain in your side: so you called-in the doctor, and told him; see what a lot I know... You are engaged, too. It is well to stick to one."

"Yes, you try"—like balls tossed short from rackets their retorts shot reacting, their eyes brighter—"mine is an after-dinner engagement made of pie-crust and wine-bubbles; but a saint's promise—What made you? He is half a millionaire now—was it the money? You don't love him."

"Ha, ha, that's your Subconscious saying that a saint ought to, and 'ought' comes out as 'do.' Dislike me really, as I you."

"Now, what rot"—Foy idly eyed her nails, her only non-pretty bit, too big, too voulu, that glossy contrast of pale and pink: "your egoism is complete. Those Methody hymns you shout, they are praises of God for having created you just as you are with all your pleas. I am not vain—foreign to me. I know that I am pretty and tricky, but there's no vanity; I see myself, not as a 'person', but as a thing in God's hands—a 'vessel', you would say; cold in the eye; you look through films of emotion"—shoo-shoo-shoo of showers showering, and quick like cats' pattes twinkling the winds of her larynx acted.

Agnes answered "It isn't what one looks through, but how much one sees. When I told you that your uncle was poisoned you said 'he was not', 'it is what I say that stands.' But it fell. Let not him boast that putteth his armour on, but him that taketh it off."

Meditating on her with some expression of contempt, Foy answered "Pooh, do you suppose I didn't know that he was poisoned? I now know the whole—except two or three things; but, if ever I tell, it won't be to you. Who, do you now suppose, poisoned him?"

"Monk's hat found"—her eyes fell to her Kodak—"seems to have committed suicide, poor man: so—"

"Pooh"—Foy looked disdain, standing with her forearms held together across her, one forefinger separated, like scissors opened—"you don't believe such stuff. Poor simple-hearted Monk: I am vexed that he is dead... And yet, why be? Death is Good Itself—do you know? we become God. Yes, when you kill a fox, instantly you make him the disposer of your destiny, ruler of the universe. I know—the drop slips back into the sea, and suddenly one is everywhere and everywhen—at home—gloating in a kind of goldy twilight, knowing everything—or not really knowing, deeper than knowing, easier."

And Foy: "Experienced it one night in sleep—perhaps I half-died, but rallied back—kind of goldy omniscience without any sense of T in it; and, associated with it, is a humming, which is nothing but the murmur of the working of the universe booming in eternity, solemn monody—like a singing-in-the-ear it is, like the throng of battle raging beyond the stars and the ages, like a chiming of church-bells churning a jumble of lullabies in some climate that lies beyond time and tide—rather nice. So, if ever it enters my head to kill you, remember in dying that I am returning you good for evil."

She smiled, but Agnes replied with sidling eyes, supercilious under lifted eyebrows, "Why not try it upon yourself, since it is so nice?"

"Not this girl!" cries Agnes: "I'd rather be old Meg Lee down at The Almshouses than Queen in Hades... Oh, the fun of this earth! Her November breezes, her brown bread-and-butter, wood-hyacinths in April... Oh, no, I don't want to live on Mars, thanks: give me the good old Mother dear."

"Well, but that's weak in the head"—from Foy—"like ninnies who say they love England more than France, without knowing France. It is only the pain of dying—and people guillotined feel no pain, they say: too quick. Death and life are Siamese-twins, near like the two sides of tissue-paper: only, our habit of living is so established in us, we don't realize ourselves as continually sitting in the electric-chair of every next tick; and it is just the change of habit, the billionth bit of a step, that's bitter—I'd change places with dear old Monk now. As to Monk having done it, that, of course, is nonsense—"

"Why, then," Agnes asked, "did he cry out 'if I wasn't the fool!' that night of the broadcasting? You heard him."

"Curious!—heaven knows. Anyway, the poor man loved my uncle—didn't poison him. I know who did: someone you\e never dreamt of. Only—there are things in it impossible to understand! That tying of his ankles... wound in his foot... that 'slime' on him... his prejudice against White-Deighton's medicine... then that sawing of the coffin's bottom: do you fathom anything of this?" —with sideward eyes now of a lady who muses on a mouse moving somewhere, and waits.

And Agnes, with lowered lids, her back against the shelves: "There is some simple solution of it all."

"Profoundly said," Foy mentioned; then: "Who but Monk could have sawn the coffin? And Monk, who, I am sure, never told me a lie, has denied! Nor is it easy to disbelieve his denial, for he could have had no reason—a Martian reason perhaps—no earthly reason! And there was someone always with the body: he could have had no chance—"

"Oh, yes, he could," Agnes said: "the night before the funeral Sister Lola, the Ursuline, slept instead of praying—"

"I saw her! went in and saw her kneeling asleep—twice; and I will swear that no saw-cut was made that night... And the next day I saw the coffin—saw no saw-cuts. Where were my eyes?" Her perplexity stared.

But Foy: "Oh, nonsense, I have salt, but no water, or I should, in truth, have shed a tear. There was cause: aye."

"Not as an uncle, of course: I am not Sally. As a friend, yes: of him alone, I think. Good sort he was."

Now they stood silent a little, until Agnes, blushing a little, asked "Has it occurred to you that Sir Patrick may have poisoned himself?"

And Foy: "No, it hasn't, because he did not, as you know, for when you suggest untruths you blush like a dairy-maid. He was fond of life: didn't know that death is nicer. Now the drop knows what the ocean knows."

"Still, there are signs of an intention to die: why else did he burn those 'books' out of the black box on his death-day?"

"Felt death coming on, I think, and didn't wish the books to be seen after. He wrote to me at Palermo 'Come to be with me, I am infested with terrors': had a presentiment—would have died anyhow: so, if the ninny who poisoned him had waited a day or two—Perhaps couldn't."

Agnes asked "And have you any idea what 'books' those could have been in the black box?"

At which a dairy-maid's blush afresh rushed up Agnes' neck. She asked "But was that like him? Do you think?"

"No, I am rather surprised," Foy said: "but, then, men are like that: they get it from their mothers... Well, I'm going—Marie insists upon my bathing twice a day. Come, if you like, and talk."

An instant their eyes met. Then Agnes: "You gracious thing!... But no, I think I won't today."

"For fun: nothing worth catching"—her limber hips now sauntering out, followed by Marie; and Agnes, left alone, said to herself: "She knows a lot o' things, this one, all about God, and death... men's taste in books... get it from their saintly mothers..."

She waited there a little, and when Marie came back within three minutes from the bathroom, said to her "You don't, then, yourself bathe Miss O'Connor?"

"You are very good; but, as I am subject to pains which Miss Foy has a knack of curing, I never like to be far from her. Thank you"—she passed on through.

After which it was home "for tea" for Agnes: and, as she passed down into the village, one Harriet O'Hanrahan came trotting up, calling "I was just going to you... I did buy these for you today in Marchstow"—presenting oranges in a paper-bag.

"Still pretty poorly. White-Deighton came on his rounds this afternoon, and him told me a heap of things I am to do for her, because, said he, er ben't coming any more."

"Him didn't say; but er told the same to Harry Price's mother, so may-be him be leaving us—with all this gossiping and newshunting going on."

"May-be... Goodbye: I'll soon come to Anne"—moving on pensive, with slower steps, now.

And there was more to come: for, as she sat to tea in her little "parlour," her Lizzie Davis said, busily privy, "News to tell you!"

"Always have"—from Agnes—"gossiping newshunting lot that we are! All right—get it off your chest."

And Lizzie: "I did get it from Nellie Griffiths, who did get it from elder Mrs. Ball. You know young Willie Evans, the clerk at Fitchett & Joyce at Marchstow? Him d'lodge with Mrs. Ball, and er let it out to Mrs. Ball that there's two wills been made: Miss O'Connor made her will last week, leaving Clonnach and all her money to White-Deighton—think o' that! And White-Deighton, he made his will at Fitchett's three days since, leaving his money to—who do you suppose?"

"To you! Four hundred a year it is, so you'll be nice and comfortable when er's dead..."

She had no answer from Agnes, who presently, staring, was murmuring "Riches are raining upon my head... bride of 'half a millionaire.'.. and now an heiress..."

The doctor must have heard, she thought, that she was mercenary, worshipped gold, and hence was engaged to 'half a millionaire': Foy O'Connor had taken care to tell him as much: so he was tossing her what she wanted, gorging her now with more gold...

She was pacing about till night had come, when, her throat now aching for dryness, she stepped back to her cup; but, the tea left in it being now cold, she peeled one of the oranges presented her by Harriet O'Hanrahan—to find it, however, a sponge, dried, dead; she cut another—spongey! and now, flushing, lifting up her heart, ardently she supplicated: "God, our Father, I pray Thee, curse the man, the chain of men, who have sold for post-war money these pre-war oranges. O, wither, weaken, weed them out of this Thy sweet, sweet Eden. Make haste, O God—kick out, curse, exterminate the sinner; uplift Thy servants. Amen."

As she was pronouncing this curse, her first, she became aware of turmoil in the street, feet sounding, a murmuring coming; heard Lizzie Davis spurt out of doors; and, on hastening to her window, saw a mob following some constables who bore two barrows, on which were two masses covered over with mackintoshes.

Her lips quivered. "Lord God!" she breathed, staring, pale; and suddenly covered her eyes from the sight of it.

All was visible enough, for some had lanterns, and a moon, though waning now, and infested with impediments of cloud which a wind swept, sailed the weather of the eastern heavens: so that she could see the feet of one of the masses, could see the mackintosh-edges shiver and flap, as they passed by, behind them stepping Massingham and a certain Deputy Chief-Constable Furley ahead of the mob of followers: and she dashed out to catch and talk with Massingham.

The moonshine showed his face paled and strained, and he was pretty mum; but said to her "It is as I told you— there is an undertow in that water: they were found almost together, at the edge, under some rocks."

But he: "No, better not—not now. Far gone they are—only recognizable by their clothes: that water's thick with little fishes. They will be put into regulation coffins for the drowned, with glass windows for the jury to view them: then you can."

"Aye: bad end.. . You weren't far out about her, after all: only, she was in the water, not in the castle, as you thought."

When she left him it was to start out on a wild walk, wind-whiffed, hatless, until, miles away, she found herself on The Chase, where she sat on a rock in bracken, solitary but for some shaggy nags which ramble those gorses, their bellies gorged with freshness and organ-voices of the gales that make pennants of their great tails and manes up there; and there, seated, she had what she called "a good old cry" at the smart that is at the heart of things; but then dried up; and for some time was looking at the moon soaring, surrounded like a bruised eye by browns and blues, brushing clouds aside as a boat's bow brushes bulrushes, as the plough's snout routs the porridge softness of the soil—accomplishing her voyaging in the thrall of so exalted a thought, that Agnes sat with a cat's gaze, fascinated, her lips meantime giving out a doggerel on the model of her recent dream-doggerel:

This is the house that God built.
And this is the hall with chickens aswarm
That saw the Dove sit broody and warm
That threw-off her brood in the broiling storm
That threw-off the puff
That fired the stuff
That fired the gun
That shot-out the sun
That shot-out the shine
That heaved-up the pine
That heaved-out the sigh
That haunted the fly
That haunted the house
That God built.

This, with her Heygate-girl ease, she reeled off glibly enough—had been reflecting on her dream-doggerel, and now again, slowly, she repeated it, dwelling on each phrase:

Not all of it she now found all dark to her; but now she became restless at a presentiment that possessed her, sighed "Oh, my, what am I doing here?," peered at her watch, saw that it was past ten, sprang up.

Chapter XVII
NIGHT-INTERVIEW

SOME of the way back she ran; but it was past eleven when she was before her door in Adversane, where her steps rather paused, till she muttered "No, mustn't be funky," and again took to running, up the "private road," past Clonnach, to the doctor's lane...

Stealthily now on her toes she stepped from gate to house, which lay dark, save one window over that dispensary-wing: under which she stood, looking up, a thumping in her bosom, her foot ever on the verge of adventure, but shirking the jump, till some rain commenced to fall, to urge; and first she called up soft, then ventured louder: "Dr. White-Deighton!"

Silence... Then: "I will come"—down with a Nürnberg lantern, to open a door, to conduct her through the laboratory, through an aroma of spiceries, up to the light in a book-room with a fire, with two shelves of chemicals, a tungsten arc-lamp for ultra-violet radiation, a gorilla's skeleton, all grin, in a corner.

But she did not sit, said short of breath "Well, here I am, to stay till I get what I want"—moving to a window, to stand there with her face to the panes, conscious of her left knee still shivery, but getting better; while he in a lax jacket of silk and a "smoking-cap" of satin that had a tassel, waited, seated; and presently said "You have now, I think, found out why it is a biological good to murder human males, as in war, and have come to tell me."

"Is that sincere?" she glanced backward to answer: "you know that I've come on something more important."

"Than the truth of things?" he asked: "no, you will not say that... Still, I was insincere: for I guess that your object is more personal."

And again he waited; but when the dumbness compelled her to say something, something else came than what was uppermost in her... "Tell me this: there is a certain black box missing from the Clonnach laboratory—may I know if that was the 'parcel' which you were seen to carry away when you last visited Miss O'Connor?"

With his eyes cast down on the figures which he was idly drawing, he replied "No, that was not 'black': it was this workbox here, which, containing a document, was handed me by Miss O'Connor."

"I see. Well, I have reason now to say that that black box has been buried in one or other of seven places in the graveyard; and I am digging—may soon get it."

Now she swung round to face him with "I seem to have come just in time!"-—shocked at her own voice venturing to utter her thought: "that pile of letters—And what is the liquid in that syringe? Oh, Dr. White-Deighton, I thought that you had a higher sense of what you owe!"

"You surprise me"—smiling to himself, his pencil turning out circles with a certainty of hand almost perfect—"do you think that I intend to commit suicide?"

"What does it? I will tell you an incident: just now I found some oranges spongey, and I stood and cursed the man who had sold them: as Shimei, the son of Gerah, cursed David, as Elijah cursed the cheeky children, as Jesus cursed the fig-tree, so I cursed him—to my own surprise: for a month ago—less—I should have considered it very wrong to do such a thing; now I know it to be very right: such a distance have I travelled from my village, not by train, but by aeroplane. So you see why I am concerned about a life that, by a miracle of fifty words, could so lead me out of darkness into light."

His forehead lifted, lit up with pleasure, a little; then: "I compliment you, since a readiness to change is a measure of intelligence. Savages—even civilised Negroes—have a quiet smile at any attempt to modify their beliefs; so have Chinese scholars to a less degree; so have white dons, priests, legal people, and the like; while scientists stand ever ready, at the breath of a demonstration, to cast for ever aside the convictions of their life-time: for the dull love their own conceits, but the bright love God. I think, though, that your curse, like 'the son of Gerah's', and the others, was so much wasted breath."

"Well, I, too, had that thought," she said: "and yet I felt that there is something somehow in Nature which would register it. We don't know everything."

"We know hardly anything. Still, I think that scientists would now know, if it is a fact that curses have any effect upon children, fruit-trees, or fruiterers. More useful, I am sure, would be to shoot the fruiterer—as he should be shot, as he would be shot in an army, or in a nation that was anything like a nation: that is, like an army. But, then, you may be hanged."

"Yes, a deterrent from doing, and being, good, often—like our villager-institutions in general."

But now she shook her face impatiently with "One's talk is always side-tracked from persons to things where you are. I am here to plead"—now she sat on a stool near him—"my client is mankind—and there is no reason... Tell me this, looking into my eyes: you weren't at all involved in the poisoning of Sir Patrick O'Connor?"

"Well, then," she said, "there is no reason... If you were not involved, it shall not be believed that you were: I undertake that much. This gale of enmity against you will blow over—"

He interrupted: "But you make me smile at you, if you conceive that 'this gale of enmity' could instigate me a little to the act of suicide: the 'gale' is a buzzing—its one manifestation which I respect being the decision yesterday of The General Medical Council, met in London, to erase my name from the Register—done in my absence, since I refused to attend—to erase my name, who am the president of the local branch of the British Medical Association, this erasure involving the ancillary loss of all appointments held by me under the Crown. And it is well done: one of these letters here is to express my sense of the soundness of the Council's step. For, in truth, I am no good. I had quite a conceit— as I now see—of this hand of mine, and eye, and mind: but it was baseless. My eye has rested on a body poisoned with mercury, without observing mercury—like some raw Dr. Brown. I dissolve myself, then: may God reassemble my elements in some nobler form."

Fixed as nickel his face: and she, sitting forward, gazed at its gauntness, feeling that here was stronger rock than her rod could crack; but her innate faith in her own knack to "manage," to win over, and win through somehow, steeled her still; and she said "Haven't you added to the mathematics of Man? Do such lives belong to themselves to?"

"Well, yes, I have done some work," he put-in: "but my springs now seem to have undergone relaxation. You, at any rate, must not pretend to respect me: for to no one else have I so strongly stated that the man was not poisoned... and he was. You said that he was; and I assured you that he was not; and he was, ha, ha." He reddened; his pencil dabbed the table with decision.

And she: "Oh, dear, as if there wasn't death enough already... Do you know that that poor little Hester Hayes"—now her face convulsed—"has just been found?"

"Yes—don't cry, don't cry—a little wine!" He was suddenly up and gone, with long strides.

And instantly her crying dried up: for tears can be at once sincere and willed, to serve a purpose, as when pearls drip from film-actresses' lids; nor was he well out when she had in her hand-bag one of two gloves, with a rent in its palm, which she had noted on a shelf; then had open that "workbox handed him by Miss O'Connor," and had drawn from it a big document engrossed, which crackled as she unfolded it, to dash through it with eyes that travelled flyingly as pistons flit... "last will and testament of me Ray Foy Phipps Mary... and as to the residue of my estate realty or personalty... upon trust to pay the annual produce, rents, dividends or interests thereof or thereon to the said Almroth Ivor White-Deighton or his assigns... and from and after his death or decease upon trust to transfer, convey, or assign the said lands, hereditaments, premises, funds, trusts, stocks, moneys, investments, and securities unto such person or persons for such intents, uses, purposes..." she had replaced it, had reclosed the box, was muttering "the casket is as elaborate as the document," when he reentered.

And, pretending to sip his sherry, she was presently saying "If you will only listen... I said he was poisoned, yes, but what with? with strychnine, I said! and no trace of strychnine was in him. Yet I don't go and kill myself! Massingham says that no case of his was ever such a mix-up of mysteries—nothing is as it appears—everything, if one waits a day, presents another face—"

"No other face can be presented here," he interrupted; "the man was poisoned: that is a fact; and I failed to see it: that is a fact."

"But you were wrong before as to facts! You said that he was not poisoned. And mayn't you be wrong now again somehow?—may have been hypnotized, or something—no, that's nonsense; or drugged...? At any rate, you might wait and see if anything throws some new light—give one a chance—give me a month—one! They say at home that I am 'clever-in-the-end': may-be I'll get at it all, for it's dogged that does it, I am ravenous now to know, and I had a dream... By the way, I have wanted to ask you—is there such a word as 'conchite'?"

"You had heard it. The conscious forgets, but the Subconscious (which emerges in sleep) remembers all. Indeed, if some psycho-analysts are scientific, the Subconscious is an ocean in which all knowledge is implicit: so that, au fond, Life is omniscient."

"I shouldn't wonder... Well, in the dream I seemed to know the whole thing; when I woke I was uttering a gibberish like 'the house that Jack built'; and, if only I could unravel that—"

"Well! puns"—she stared—"I didn't know! Oh, dear, how little fitted I am... If I find out now, it will be thanks to you. And I will—I'll be 'clever-in-the-end'—there's always a way out, and I'll be stumbling into it. Already I have inklings peeping, dreamings so strange taking shape... Unfortunately, I am always too late! more sanguine than efficient, slovenly, muddling-through—pretty quick up in the peepers, I fancy, but happy-go-lucky, untrained—bear with me—give me time. There are such a host of unknowns in the case: and suppose that, after all, I discover some explanation of your 'inefficiency', as you called it, but discover it too late, you gone, gone, how will I feel then? guilty before the bar of Man: for isn't your name Aladdin? those are the Wonderful Lamps that are alight in your eyes; and, if I fail to stop you from puffing them out—it is for myself that I plead—pity me—you said that I am something to you..."

Her stress had brought her face pretty near to his, he was conscious of water twinkling within her lids, of the strength of her being's electricity brought to ray upon him, and a thrill which he instantly repressed ripped through his recesses, as he smiled a little, blushed a little, saying "Isn't there a certain disloyalty...? you now belonging to a certain rich man who has been described to me as 'half a millionaire.'.."

Whereupon dumbness a little—her underlook dwelling on him with a mute meaning...

Which the more embarrassed him, a blush touching his cheeks to cerise. "Oh, quite so," he said hurriedly, "it is not I who so describe the gentleman."

And she: "Well, the Romans raped the Sabines' wives: I should live and fight for it, if I were you. Let the strongest have her."

To this he answered after some moments "We are better than the Romans. Whomever you bless with your preference, it is—or should be—as if you had blessed me, since the intelligent man loves his neighbour as himself."

"O!"—she forced a laugh—"I thought that that's villager, loving one's neighbour."

"No, no, I never said so: for, in fact, villagers never do. I said that loving one's neighbour, or murdering him, has nothing to do with religion, though loving England, murdering England, has, since God is 'interested' in motions, and in nothing else. But, then, not to love one's neighbour, man or dog, 'as' oneself—with the same unemotional, effective love—is unintelligent: for intelligence consists in seeing truth; and, if Tom loves Tom more than Dick, and Dick loves Dick more than Tom, each seeing in himself the most estimable and momentous of beings, both can't be seeing a truth; in fact, both are living, as villagers do, in a delusion of noodles. So when the ancients counselled 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy neighbour as thyself, the second counsel was as good as the first was excellent: for the second is intelligent, the first intelligent and religious. Only, the ancients, like villagers in general, supposed that both are religious: which is absurd. This, then, is the law as to loving neighbours."

And she: "I see! That's why you give away your money and yourself like water: there'll be lamentation in these three villages, let me tell you, if you abandon them. But, then, you won't"—afresh she brought her battery to bear—"anyway, you will give us a chance, as it's me"—plying her eyes—"trusting in me a little... You wouldn't believe how tricky I can be in fits and starts—or not I, but Something that lives in me—things spring up out of the deep—"

His pencil-point waltzed a faultless ellipse, dotted a sun in a focus of it, he contemplating it sideward, smiling, as he asked "Has the answer 'sprung up' in you why it is a good to murder human males, as in war?"

Her heart said "Now God help me"—feeling that her "trickiness" was being put to the proof here; and, to gain time, she remarked "Hark at that rain; I am a prisoner—until you promise": for now a rushing sound of showering shut the house within a rustling as of audiences applauding, flutterings of programmes going on, multitudes, mixed with a business of tricklings tinkling, dulcimer-strings blubbing, melted butters of melody bubbling into butts and tubs: a sweat of wetness, sequestering them in lonesomeness as on some planetesimal wayfaring in space; and a minute she bent ear to it; then suddenly put-on "bluff," answering "Oh, yes, I saw that."

Now, frowning, she uttered "For every man that falls in the war a woman, too, falls—a woman as a woman, as a mother: for, if there are ten million fewer husbands, there must be ten million fewer wives—where there is monogamy: so now nine million women, say, will go childless. And these will be the 'baser sort': for the men left alive will select the best wives they can get. Therefore the type of mother will be raised on the average. In fact, I know two men who never would have got the wives they have, but for the war—girls wouldn't have had 'em... Is that how it is?"

"But stay," he said: "do you remember that, but for the war, those two girls would have had better husbands? that, since many good men fall, and no C3. men, the war must more or less lower the type of father, while raising the type of mother? Why, then, is the latter a better thing than the former is a bad thing?"

"Oh, now, I'm stumped," she muttered to herself; but then at once, sitting forward with bright eyes sparking, sharply she asked "Don't children get intelligence from mothers?"

"Why, yes," he answered: "fathers transmit shape, mothers size, as breeders know: so 'build', 'character', strength, is from fathers, size of body and mind from mothers."

"Then, that's it!" she brightly cried—"got it! Intelligence is the main thing: therefore motherhood is more important than fatherhood; 'our mothers make us most.'"

And he: "Yes—for Man, not for other animals, intelligence is the main thing; and only lately for Man; strength was once main, and it was men then who were adorned—with beards—to be selected by women, for strength. Now that intelligence is main, it is women who are adorned, to be selected by men, for intelligence. When there is an excess of women to be selected, intelligence flourishes, as among the French, who have always been at war: and Nature aims to do what war does by causing more girls to be born than boys. This, then, is the law as to the murder of males."

"Why, yes, as I knew—even extremely so. Obvious as these correlations are when stated, many detectives—Darwin himself—have wished, and failed, to detect them."

Now he moved his eyes aside to her, and a woefulness which sicklied the light of them shocked her. "You do not realize"—shaking his face in piteous appeal—"the depth of my humiliation: my all is lost with my self-respect; nor could any 'trickiness' of an angel now rebuild for me the spiritual home in which I have lived and moved. However, since you wish—you are good so to interest yourself. You said 'a month'—and I am glad now—another month of the sun! On condition, of course, that no attempt is made meantime by 'the gale of enmity' to seize my body: for I shall stand prepared to prevent so much indignity... Now are you satisfied?"

Her palm pressed the back of his left hand, heartily though briefly, while she breathed to herself "God help me," having the whole load of his destiny now on her back; and, without saying anything, content and discontent, she stood up to go again to the window, and hear near in her ear that sounding of the downpour; till she glanced round to remark "Well, thanks for so much: you wouldn't have done that for anybody else going... although they say— Is it a fact that Dr. White-Deighton is, or once was, 'sweet' on Miss Foy O'Connor?"

"Made you an offer, has she? Is that why she is so agitated on seeing you and me together? Yet I can't think that the lady is 'in love' somehow—symptoms missing! So why—for it is known—has the lady made a will in your favour?"

His arms dropped abandoned. "I—do not know. When I was last with that lady—I will tell you in confidence—she handed me this workbox, saying 'Open it at home', and I found it to contain her will and a mass of cigarettes. Why it should occur to her to make a will—to give me cigarettes... I have been most distressed, perplexed, entangled..."

"Yes, I can: steadier under water than under fire. Only a month to work hard in, every minute precious: already I seem to see... Please show me down; and cheer up, please, never say die."

When his refusal to let her go proved useless, she was away, a dashing shadow through the rain, like fugitive Cain pursued; and at his lane-end turned, not homeward to the left, but toward the churchyard to the right, where she had a boy watching.

But she had hardly sent him home and taken his place when terrors commenced to distress her; and, hidden within the south porch (whence one can survey most of the churchyard), she stood on the qui vive, alert to fly at the first sign of anybody rising for night-business from his bed. "Oh, but how lonesome!" she mourned, throwing up eye-whites of reproach—"and it is useless, too much moonlight, no one will come, and I all wet like this": persuading herself with which reflections, she soon forsook the vigil, moving slow away, not daring to fly, lest her hairs should rise, and she should be chased from the rear; until she was clear of the lychgate, when she took to her heels for the village.

Chapter XVIII
THE FUGITIVE PURSUED

BUT the next day her boy, Jim Davis, continued to earn money of her for watching the churchyard in the daytime and earlier night-hours; and before midnight she herself was afresh there, intending to remain: but something of a moon was still wandering abroad with a look of astonishment at the town of Being's street-lamps twinkling, a bumpkin's countenance, showing a shrunken brow and loutish jowl: so she went back home to her notebooks, marked I, II, III, now crowded with notes, over which she was now poring with a new stubbornness of brow, neglecting even to attend "the inquests"—as to two of which it was Gilfillan who told her the results in passing from "The Union": "Found drowned" as to Hester Hayes, "Suicide" as to Monk.

It was from her window that she witnessed the two funerals; and two days later came "the verdict" on the baronet: "Murder.".. "some person unknown"—news of this being given her by Massingham in the street: "The coroner summed up twenty minutes, the jury deliberated an hour, then came in with the verdict, and with a rider that 'the case calls for further investigation.' The coroner then directed that they must name some suspect, if there was to be 'further investigation'; but this was an improper direction, everyone is saying: and after retiring fifteen minutes the jury returned with the statement that they could not agree to name any person—some of them infatuated with a certain person perhaps." He added "I am just going up to Clonnach... Mysterious thing: one of those three revolver-cases has disappeared—can't make out where to! You might come... And we got a little key out of Monk's jacket-pocket: I want to see if it fits anything."

And he: "A bit. He could only be approached for moments, till he was coffined—well, you saw through the glass what's left of his face; but we got down his pockets—found this key and a handkerchief."

She hesitated; then: "Seemed oddly tied—Oh, it's nothing: I only saw them as he was being taken to The Union... Very well, I will come to Clonnach: have something to tell you."

She then threw-on her cloak, and, as they went together up the "private road," said, not looking at him, her face bent down, "Now that the verdict's pronounced, you will be out for—action, no doubt: old C.I.D. must justify its existence. But, then—you know, do you, that White-Deighton has been making a will?"

"The difficulty," she went on, "is to keep the man living as it is: if action is taken against him, ah! he will be prepared for it, I know."

"So any attempt of yours would have to be made with infinite trickiness, to be successful. He is a doctor—knows his way: and there are dead bodies enough already. I—I thought I'd warn you."

"Why not wait?... You and Gilfillan and I might have a conference, compare notes..."

They were now at a Clonnach all lit up that evening, a cloth unrolled before the porch, motor-cars, branches of rambler-rose, ivy-leaf geranium, smilax—a dinner-party: it was a parlour-maid, not the footman, who led them upstairs, she saying to Massingham in going up "Have you heard?—some things were stolen out of the house last night."

"Meat out of the larder, two or three loaves, a newspaper with some pencil-marks made on it by myself, left in the housekeeper's pantry—gone."

"Meat? Loaves? Newspaper?"—Massingham looked at Agnes; Agnes looked at the floor.

"I'll look into it..." And, as they entered the laboratory, he asked Agnes "What do you make of this?"

"Where's this Winter? Where's he? His game, his reasons!... Man must be made of air!... Oh, well, no use Here, see, is where the three revolvers were; now one's gone, nobody knows—no end to the bothers and vexations. There is a kind of ghost that plays pranks on people—'poltergeist' they call 'em—looks as if six of them were mixed-up in this business"—this before a scrivania—sixteenth-century Genoese—in the baronet's bedroom. Massingham had raised the scrivania's cover, and they stood watching the two remaining Webley revolver-cases, until he remarked "If we could find out when it vanished, we could begin to guess why."

"It was there all right ten days ago... I suppose you didn't notice that it was gone?"

Hurriedly she changed the subject. "As to the key found on Monk, I think I know... There's a panel with a key-hole inside this thing: I've wondered where the key was."

Stooping now, he unlocked the scrivania's doors, and they two on their knees peered within.

Upon which he put-in the key from Monk's pocket; it fitted; and the panel opened.

Now they could see, low down before them, a square tunnel, the sides of the square two inches long; but though the room was bright with candelabra (lit by an electric set below), the tunnel was dark, until Massingham switched into it the ray of his pocket-lamp: and now at the tunnel's end, ten inches away, they could descry one end of a tiny parcel in brown paper, square, nearly filling the tunnel's square. Massingham glanced at Agnes to ask "Now, what would that be?"

She did not answer, and he now inserted a pencil into the tunnel to win the little parcel toward him; but she, fearing that there was not space for the pencil between parcel and tunnel-sides, fearing that the pencil would just push the parcel further in, suddenly parted with an outcry "Don't touch!"

"Size, shape—two boxes; their breadth is always double their depth: so two together, end-on, make a perfect square like that."

"I said 'I think.'.. No, don't touch: wait a day, until we think out a way... Yes, we'll blow gum containing iron filings upon them, then draw them out with a magnet—if they're not tied inwards. They are matches—placed there to guard some secret beyond; and, if they are pushed inwards, all's up, I think."

At this Massingham's nose expressed some offence; but then he smiled, saying "Well, but isn't all that rather out of the common?... Anyway, I think we'll risk it."

"Let me!" Agnes cried: "my fingers lighter"—snatching a hair-pin out of her hair; but, even as she pulled its prongs open, Massingham, who had hardened his heart against her, was again poking-in the pencil-point... In touching the parcel, he must have shifted it a little inward, and within six ticks he was snatching his hand back from the outrush and little shout of surprise of a batch of matches which catch fire, as when cats spit.

Some moments more, and smoke was coming out of the tunnel, three lines of light being now visible between the parcel and the tunnel-sides.

Then was hurry and distraction, rendered the more flurried by the fact of the social function going on in the house, a sound of the organ now noising from the music-room. Agnes said to herself "I will get the blame from Foy O'Connor," and she called out upon Marie, the lady's-maid, while Massingham, having rushed to a washstand and found no water, called down the back-stair: so that pretty soon three girls stood there in a haze of smoke, with lots of water—but at a loss how to use it. Back of the tunnel, evidently, was some chamber of the scrivania now in flames: but when the scrivania's back, dragged from the wall, was examined, no means appeared of getting at the chamber from the rear. There, carrying-on a crackling, pouring fumes from some internal disease of combustion, stood the piece of furniture—but baffling: for to toss water upon it before any flame sprang out would only have been to waste water. But presently Agnes said "Well, we can't have the house burned down," and spurted to the hearthplace to catch-up a poker; Massingham now caught-up a hassock; and they two together began to bombard the scrivania's back, which, being made of flimsy boarding, commoner wood, already scorched within, soon cracked: they could then descry a chamber inside red with fire, a cube of paper alight within it; and when an effusion of smoke enveloped them, Agnes cried out "Now, Mr. Massingham! drench it."

But, as Massingham turned to get a jug of water from a girl, Agnes paused in the bombardment to insert an arm, and, not without a scorch, snatched at some leaves—part of a pamphlet, they seemed: did it with so swift a thievishness, that she was not seen; and, half-hidden in the reek, she had stamped-out the combustion of the leaves, and had tucked them into some nook of her, before Massingham tramped back loaded, to drench the chamber to a mud of ashes.

Then the maids went away; and Massingham and Agnes, seated on chairs, looked at each other, while the fumes oozed to thinness away...

At which she rather started! for there was unfriendliness in his tone, his heart now hardened against her, since one can't help disliking those whose warnings come true. But she had special reasons for wishing him to like her, as he had seemed to hitherto: so silence now.

And she: "Like house that Jack built!... Didn't you see a saucer there in the chamber? There's water in saucer, and a phial lying in water. Water was to keep cool a piece of phosphorus that had been in it, so that phosphorus might not catch fire of itself some hot day. As to phial, it had contained acid, and had been lying just behind match-boxes in tunnel: so when your pencil pushed match-boxes, boxes pushed phial; phial overbalanced and fell into saucer, pouring out its acid into water; water became hot, heating stick of 'waxy' phosphorus in it; phosphorus flamed; flame touched matches just above; and both matches and phosphorus would fire papers suitably placed to be fired. So you see: pencil pushed matches, that knocked-down phial, that chucked-out acid, that enraged water, that infuriated phosphorus, that retaliated on matches, that hissed curse, that shocked pencil—house that Jack—We didn't see any phosphorus—burnt away—but that's how it was."

His nose expressed offence. "That may or may not be," he said: "but do you say that anybody would want to burn bonds, and go to all that trouble—? Something other than bonds."

"Oh, mine's broader still: I can stand the racket. You ladies nowadays.... Stay, you are such a dab at everything, I'll put something to you. Just come with me."

He stood up, led her into the laboratory to a shelf thronged with bottles, pointed at a bottle. "Is that mercurochrome?"

Now, this was just what Mr. Hancock, the County Analyst, whom Massingham had had up there, had told Massingham; and he said to Agnes "You've got it pat, I see. Perhaps you had noticed yourself that the strychnine and mercurochrome had got into the wrong bottles?"

She hesitated, blushed; then: "Yes, I did notice—some days ago. Is it of any importance?"

Now they made a move downward, to encounter at the stair-foot Foy O'Connor in fairy array, her head of gold, her belly and her thighs of silver, her feet of clay, she then crossing the inner hall with three guests; and she stopped to say "Well, Miss Heygate, do you want to burn me out of house and home? Never mind, we'll build a new New House... What exactly happened?"

"Couldn't be helped!"—from Agnes: "papers hidden in the scrivania, with chemicals to fire them—"

Foy made a step backward to lean to her and whisper close "Lewd books: we deprave the men"—and went on her way.

And Agnes to Massingham: "Oh, she isn't bad! doesn't make a fuss"—as they passed out into "The Meadows," and out into the "private road," on which they still were when they saw coming a mob of villagers, though it was now bed-time, past nine, and in the mob a constable who was seeking Massingham, bringing with him a Mr. Sweeney, a ship's-chandler, from St. Anne's. The constable said to Massingham "Gentleman here says he's seen Inspector Winter, Sir."

"At last... Make room there, make room"—to the mob pressing, craning; and he showed his Yard-man's warrant-card to the ship's-chandler, saying "Now, Sir, let's have it."

It came out that at six-fifteen o'clock a man in uniform had entered Sweeney's to buy a pocket-compass: and immediately Sweeney's attention had been roused, because (1) the man's face was all bristles—long unshaved; because (2) Sweeney saw three boys peeping in at the man; and because (3) the man seemed dumb: did not ask for the compass, pointed at it; did not ask "how much?," held out money on his palm for Sweeney to take. This was why, when he went out, Sweeney also went, and joined the boys, who had been set to watch the man by Eliot, another shopkeeper of St. Anne's, of whom the man had bought a hammer, a razor, a screwdriver, two towels, and other things. Unfortunately, the boys, as they followed the man, went whispering the thing to everybody they met, the news flew, and, by the time the man was out of St. Anne's, St. Anne's was after him. He seemed not to know of it; but there were whisperings and other sounds behind him—he knew all right: and two hundred yards before you come to that covert below Martin's farm the man took like mad to his heels. Screaming after him the people flew; but when they reached the covert the man had vanished. They scattered, ransacked the covert; but the night was rather dark: no sign of him; got away.

"And his shoulder-twist—how thick?" Sweeney showed two fingers. "It was Winter," Massingham muttered. And Agnes, speculating on a star with quick-blinking lids: "Yes, I see, I begin..."

Chapter XIX
AFTERNOON BREEZES

BUT an impediment to her progress lay in her own nature —in the nervousness of a certain nerve of her: as she said to herself in the churchyard the next afternoon "Aye, there's a soppy spot herein... But, after all, a human being should be reasonable. Even if it is a fact that people get up out of their graves, it wouldn't be at night: they'd sleep at night by force of habit, and get up in the day in their old way. Yet I'm not frightened in the day, when they get up, I am frightened at night, when they don't get up... Now! how soft up above..."

This to fortify herself for vigils now impending upon her, the nights thenceforth being moonless; and, at the moment, it was easy for her to see from this point-of-view of the rationalist, the afternoon being bright and alive with laughter of breezes, nor was the graveyard wholly lonely: for yonder toward the lychgate loitered her Jim Davis—she was there to see that he was properly on the watch for her; and she had also wished to deposit some flowers upon Hester Hayes' mound, and to see the obelisk of porphyry erected the day before to Monk by Foy O'Connor's orders, the grave being near the O'Connor family-grave close under the apse, the stone having on it in gold letters:

After watching which, she paced to the church's west end, whence was visible a field west of The Old House lake, south of the rectory-back, in it Alan Walpole in action at football; and, though it was pretty remote, her good eyes could descry his gracility of limb, his strict furore, the discipline in his freedom; and she kissed her fingers at him, muttering "You poem of a boy!... Yes, I like them strong: 'strength from the fathers, intelligence from the mothers', to stamp at last on the Alp-tops, by God—so that doctor says."

Then back to sit a little on the south churchyard-wall and muse over the water, letting her eyes rest on the inscriptions over four Davises who lay close to Sir Patrick—inscriptions now known to her by heart, loved by her with laughters and tears...

Her painful end no one can well describe,
Nor what she suffered here before she died,
But with a Christian courage did resign,
Her soul to God at his appointed time;

and she muttered at it "Of all the ill-fated wretches in respect of rhyme, that poet... Specially edifying is that 'here.'.. that last comma..."

And she muttered again "That next one is stronger in his rhymes; but rottener still the string that binds his phrases together":

Our life hangs by a single thread,
So soon is broke and we are dead,
Boast not, vain reader, of thy might,
A-live at noon and dead at night.

Then when a ton of wind, shot like coal upon three elms, drenched them noisily, she, with her head cast back, laughed at them "Daughters of the gods! divinely tall... Goddess-girls racing, arriving with flying hair, wrangling garments, sighing laughters of satiety..."

And across the water, all solitary now, crowds of foliage round The Old House were in motion slow and grave, with an emotion of congregations that, making sacred song, rock themselves for ecstasy; and she laughed at it "Rockabye, baby, in the tree-top! Aye, I be glad I be alive this blessed day..."

But on taking her eyes from that, and on glancing again at the water under her, she went palish, asking herself "What's that?"—noticing a puff of dust that suddenly surged-up to the surface, purplish stuff...

And as she was saying to herself "Now, I wonder what—" again a puff! as if the bottom there was volcanic and in action; upon which up she sprang, ghast, as from an adder, to bend stand-offishly, agaze at it; and now again, a third time, up it surged, a puff of dust, purplish: so that now she murmured "Oh, no, I don't like this"—for the thing was happening just opposite Sir Patrick's grave; and now she took to her heels from it.

Not far, however; far enough to call to her Jim Davis: for with one other human soul—a child—beside her, she would have defied all the ghosts and ogres that go about: it was perfect solitude that "got on her nerves"; and when the boy joined her she went back to it, saying to him "Now look at the water, you'll see something come up."

But he did not see: the eruption seemed to be now over; and after twenty minutes they went away, to dig a hole, big as the black box, close to a grave, digging with a spade from the belfry—this being the fifth hole digged by her.

Chapter XX
THE DEAD

NOW she meant to watch in the graveyard, and in order that the burier of the box might believe that she was not there to watch, she told everyone whom she met in going home that she was "going away for a week"; at home she wrote to Gilfillan "Going away a little—don't forget her for another!"; and at five she set out—two miles to the station—everyone stopping to stare or enquire, seeing her trotting along with a suitcase.

She leapt into her train without a ticket, paid at her destination, which was Leigh, five miles distant, where she put-up at "The Beaufort"; and at ten that night was tramping back toward The Three Villages, not by the highroad, but cutting across—now knowing that countryside thoroughly.

But it was dark, no star, her path frequently dismal beneath thickness of leafage: and her heart was uneasy within her. Unfortunately her torch gave-out, exhausted: every now and again she found herself stepping, not on path, but on grass—had to grope to rediscover; and, on getting to Adversane church, the thing which she feared came upon her: for she had ever a feeling that, if the church-clock chanced to strike once when she was quite nigh it, this was bad, ominous—like a toll: and she did not wish to die, her vitalness alien to death and decay, as cat hisses at badger; but now, as she stepped by, the bell decided to toll—half-past eleven—and this the more upset her mechanism.

None the less she went on, through the lychgate to the south porch, within which she found her Jim's younger brother buried in depths of obscurity, he, too, in a state of dread; and, he having been sent home, she peered forth alone, seated on one of two old benches there in the porch.

There she was when the church-clock struck one... six... twelve; and she heard twelve and a half: for the last had an aura that haunted.

And this outbreak of sound—was it not for the dead a reveille, which meant to the regiment "be up and doing"?

And in the dumbness that came after that dozen of summonses she was suddenly aware of a sound. Thump...

For the thing could not be localized: it might have been an echo of some explosion booming on the moon, or of some explosion going on in the bowels of our globe, down in the ghouls' abode, or it might have been shocks of glove-boxing, Jove and Jehovah boxing in some other cosmos—thumps so dumb and muffled, that the ear could not be certain a moment afterwards that it had actually heard something other than some heart-thump of the inanity of the dark, or some murmur of eternity's dumbness summoning tongue to mutter "I am dumb": the thumps of her own heart were hardly more muffled to her.

Nor was it caused by any mortal digging into the graveyard soil: the ear recognized that; and she moaned at it, clinging to one of the pilasters at the porch-side—pilasters of antique oak meeting in Gothic points atop—her face against the woodwork.

But it became intolerable—a thumping somewhere, somehow—and she sprang up to peer out: could see one tree a little—no others—no pathway; at any moment one might have slapped her without her seeing; and she breathed to herself with reproach "Why am I here? can't see anything."

For the ear deprived of the eye was a disease—the ear with the whole burden of comprehending the world thrown upon it, straining to hear and explain to the brain, but hearing nothing but the murmuring of trees interned in darkness, and the murmuring of the waterfalls farther off, and the murmuring with which the hush of earth and heaven ever haunted the hollow of the eardrum's solitude, and anon in the deep that pulse thumping somewhere.

And presently some instinct of her ear, habituated now to the thump, led her to step out of the porch—toward Sir Patrick: she dared this: step by step, herself a wraith, high-strung, white-struck, guessing her way among the graves, exploring the thump in its dismal home—and it did seem to become somewhat more local the more she stepped, so that she was actually led on to within three yards of that dead. But there her heart failed her: for the conception now entered her head that the thumping was his, that the man was thumping upon his coffin-lid. The longer she cherished it the stronger became this impression: and since that was foreign stuff to sense and to the homely mode of the sun—for his flesh had long been dead, his entrails wrenched from him—and since she felt that she was witnessing here what no living happy heart should live and witness, she was away, with a hypocrite whispering within herself: "It is nothing... but I cannot see..."

So now she abandoned her post because it was too dark, as before she had abandoned it because it had not been dark enough...

She had been there about an hour; and, to complete her rout, scarcely had she reached the lychgate afresh when the belfry-bell bleated out "One for me!"—half-past twelve—its echoes aching in her heart: and now she fled headlong, escaping...

Although a sick old moon soon moved up to comfort her way, still she sped and fled toward Leigh.

But when, on opening her eyes the next day, she saw blitheness of sunshine, well-beloved, intolerant was her censure of herself: for we quickly forget the realness of experience, forget the edge and gash of actual contact with that Great God Pan, Father of Panic and of All—the "vivid manifestations of The Unknowable" being very different from the "faint" (Hume, Spencer): and to remember or conceive an embrace, a terror ("faint manifestation") is but the spectre of experiencing it ("vivid manifestation"): so, lying there on her back, her fingers clasped on her head, she said to herself "I am twenty-six: a woman has no right to be balmy... shamed of myself. Tonight, if necessary, I go to that place, and stay in it, though the lot of them tear me to pieces..."

She remained in the inn, making friends, in her fraternal way, with the landlady, until dinner-time (mid-day), her purpose in chosing this "Beaufort" tavern having been to do this; and she asked a host of questions about two travellers who had come to the inn one evening in a damaged motor-car that carried a bicycle—car and bicycle still lying there, the travellers having paid in advance for its storage for three months; and she went out to the garage across the yard to inspect, with keen peepings at wheels and everything.

After which she had a telephone-message from her Jim Davis to say that no one had dug any fresh hole in the graveyard during the night; then she went to the railway-station to question the station-men; then for a walk along the Severn-bank toward Gloucester, saw ships and shrimp-boats, got back before four, bought a new notebook, a new torch, and was writing in the notebook until tea-time: whereupon the shades of night started to fall, and her heart also at her darksome task impending.

And this night again no light of any star: though, its darkness being less dense, she did the cut across country with less distress.

Half-a-mile from St. John's of Adversane she switched the torchlight upon her watch, saw half-past eleven, and stopped till the clock called it afar. Then on, through the lychgate, into the south porch, to send home her boy, wait there alone, and watch.

All silent, save the waters talking away to themselves, no wind this night, the veiled heavens dead, everything dead like the dead, imprisoned in stillness, waiting for a wind to arise, and fling wide, like a Spirit of life and resurrection; and she felt in herself that, if the night should pulse this time afresh, or if someone should wake to thump upon a coffin, that would be more baleful for her this night, since her ear, waiting, waiting to hear, would be hearing it clearer.

But midnight struck, it did not come; and her heart hoped, ardently hoped, that it would not.

The uncertainty, however, the apprehension that it might at any moment come, was almost worse for the nerves than the thump itself: so that she sat there suffering much, her face in an attitude of pain as from neuralgia.

And at about ten past twelve it came upon her, as strokes of apoplexy come, expected, deprecated, but destined; on a day they come; and the destined says "This is the day: it is come."

Muffled stuff muttered from somewhere, a drum meaning something in some dream, or bumping down in the bowels of some mountain.

Here was "vivid manifestation," that "real presence" of Pan which shatters even the hero's heart; and "Oh, what is it?" she whispered in pain: "I can't stand it."

She was then seated, shrinking away in an awkward posture, making herself small, small, like "iota subscript" cringing under

, but was on the point of springing up in the grip of the decision to go again toward that grave beneath the sycamore—her hairs were bristling toward the venture—when another reason for springing up pricked her, and she sprang quicker—as a pistol rang out.

Directed toward her: she heard the bullet hit into the south church-door within the porch.

And this, agitating as it was, revivified her—raised her temperature from chill to flush: for here was brother-man about, and it was the dead whom she dreaded in her depths—or say rather shrank from for their oddity and foreign manners, they preoccupied with their own customs, addicted to corruption, dust in their faded hair, she a new pin fresh from the forge of the sun, addicted to her own customs: so, revivified at the pistol-shot, up she sprang, ran a little out, fire in her eyes; and, standing on shivering knees, she lifted her voice to call in a passion to the night "Here I am! Fire away!"

She even had an impulse to switch-on her torch, to show herself, but was not quite so distracted—though, with her customary faith in her luck and knack to "manage," she did not realise that when one says "here I am, shoot," another can be so ungenerous as to shoot; but this happened, for to her cry "fire" the night replied with a second bang, she felt something like a match burning her left shoulder, and now she murmured "Oh-h!", with reproach.

And now she realised that this real danger, which she had feared less, was really more fearful than that unreal, which she feared more, bullets being more malignant than ghosts: nor did she await a third shot, was off soft, dodging to the church's west end, where she slipped into the steeple's little doorway.

In that gloom she could just discern a ghost which was a surplice—the vestry being the steeple's north room, and the steeple within the church, as broad as the church (Norman).

After shutting the door without a sound, tense she stood, stretched, hearkening; and presently she heard a third shot afar—that dark arm evidently intent upon murder. So now, feeling about, she found the steel ladder leading to the clock-loft atop, and upward she fled; but, some way up, becoming conscious that, if caught, she would be cornered up there, she stole down, and stood listening as before; until, feeling her knees weak beneath her, she went to sit at a desk at the inner wall of the room under the surplice-ghost—ghosts, in fact, ingirt her, choir-cassocks of violet with white capes lurking in ambush behind a curtain; but it was not ghosts that any more perturbed her—her shoulder burning, wet, her dress rent there. She wished to switch-on to see the wound, but, fearing that the gleam might be seen, groped over the desk, chanced upon matches, and meant to strike one, but then, shying at that also, pocketed the box, lest the shooter should come and use them: for there were two candlesticks there on the desk, with three untidy candle-ends lying within an inkstand. On the desk, too, was a big book, the Church-service Register, and a heap of pamphlets which were "The Adversane Magazine," over which her fingers were groping when she was again up and away—into the nave—hearing, conceiving that she heard, a step near, searching, furtive; but in turning to the right to hide in the south room of the tower, she forgot the font, so that her toes stumped against its estrade; in getting clear of which, she stumbled upon a ewer of steel full of baptismal water, this falling with such an alarm to her ear, that she thought that all the dark must hear: and, horrified, she remained there all a minute, histing to the hollowness of that voice whose haunt the void is.

No other sound now, though: and presently she moved on, butted into a table covered over with hymn-books close to the south porch-door, butted into one of three stoves before the south tower-door; and so into the south tower-room.

And now toe... tic... toe... tic... of the clock: loud on the ear; not all the same sound quite, nor quite at equal intervals, as when anon a step hesitates: a solemn jogging in the night-time, like clogs of Time waddling along, with plodding, on their journey across the solitudes of eternity; and if the dead stirred in their beds, they must have heard that beat of feet as their sentry's tread in eternity's deeps, till their heads returned to dreaming dreams.

In there she sat on the edge of a bin containing anthracite, and presently commenced to shiver, for she had perspired and bled, and the night was chilly. But now the tic, toe, stopped, the clock's bowels, just above, rumbling to rush toward evacuation, as at a "call of nature"—bump!—one stroke; and now in some moments, resuming the old mountain-road, toe... tic... toe... tic: upon which she stood up to move a little about, and not shiver seated; but would not switch-on her light, since there is a window, though high up, in there. Yet she soon knew by touch everything in the room, coming ever anew into contact with two oil-cans, with mops, brushes, a bunch of old roses from the altar, boards leant upon a wall, the woollen sollies at the ends of the four bell-ropes looped up, with hoes, spades, old taper-ends. And now afresh the attention of her ear, stretched without respite to hear, seemed to detect some step prowling somewhere: whereupon the steeple got to seem to her too obvious a place of concealment, so she slipped out to step quick on tiptoe up the nave, up four steps into the pulpit.

And here she was, seated on a hassock, cold throughout, hushing her shudderings in her arms like a mother, when she heard some sound—within the church now—as if some foot had moved the ewer which her own foot had thrown over: and that occult presence, so close now, set her heart pounding a slow succession of thumps, loud enough, it seemed to her, for the seeker to hear; so within two minutes, not enduring to sit still in such suspense—the pulpit, too, now seeming too obvious a spot—she was creeping, crouching, down, with thievish feet, eastward to a nook between the organ's side and a lectern that carried a lamp to light the organist; and there, seeing a window above her, wild to be away, she climbed the chancel-stove, got her knee upon a ledge, got out through the lower window-leaf, to let herself six feet down to a gutter of bricks slippery with moss. In a trice she was in flight on tiptoe, hiding within the mine of the night, northwestward through grasses and graves to a small gate, and through the rectory-grounds out to the road, at a run.

Greatly now she congratulated herself—told herself that the shooter would not know of her escape, and, not knowing whether she was not still watching somewhere, would not dig up the black box.

But she only stopped to pant when she saw a stretch of shine disparting the night along a road to her right—a shine shot from some motor-car which was roaming the dark, forlorn like comets that wander the void; and comforting to her was that sight of the homely and human, till night afresh enveloped her, and afresh she sped on. But before reaching Leigh she was forced to rest her head on a tree, wearied out with experience, heavy; and here she shed some tears; but then said to herself "Ah, Agnes, buck up, get to your bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job," and she stumbled on.

Chapter XXI
THE BLACK BOX

ARRIVING soon after two, she found that her wound was slight; dressed it; went to bed; woke a new woman; and at noon, having a rendezvous at the telephone with her Jim Davis, spoke to him.

"Then you dig one now: near the foot of Grace Price's grave to the south of the south porch. And you or your brother be there till I come tonight."

She then went out to call upon a Mr. Soames, an antiquary, full of local lore, who lived in Leigh; and came back with three books which he lent her...

Her courage had come back to her in the light of day; but darkness had hardly begun to gather when again gloom grew down upon her mood: and she resolved then to give up her independence, and get help.

So she telephoned to Massingham at Elberleigh "I am in trouble: will you come?"—and in half an hour he was with her in the tavern's smoking-room, having come on a motor-bicycle.

She told of her two nights 'haps; and he said "But that thumping, now—mayn't that have been your fancy?"

She hesitated; then: "I'll tell you now. I have measured with light-rays the depth of dust that had gathered in the dust-mark left by the box before I covered dust-mark; and, counting back, I found that box had been removed during broadcasting night, when it was announced that the body would be exhumed; that night someone attempted to open the grave: this makes box important."

And he: "Hm. I see. 'Light-rays.' I can't say that I place much reliance upon light-rays myself... And what makes you think that the box was buried?"

Now she blushed a little, and he, seeing this, understood that her next utterance would not be the whole truth. She said "I—don't know that my reasons would convince you. One reason is that there is no other likely hiding-place than underground. The Old House has been searched since, box isn't there; and, if it had been dropped into lake, would have been dragged up, like the boots and other things."

"Hm. No doubt. And who were these 'four people' whom you told that you are digging holes to find the box?"

"Winter's wife for one, then Miss O'Connor's lady's-maid, Miss O'Connor, and Dr. White-Deighton."

"But could Winter get the box on the broadcasting night? I never heard that he went up to the laboratory."

"That," Agnes answered, "I haven't been able to find out. I only know that when I went away from the broadcasting I left him at Clonnach."

Massingham pondered. Then: "White-Deighton after the broadcasting went from the drawing-room to see a sick, did he?"

"And when O'Loughlin offered to accompany him to the sick, he said 'I know the way'? was that so?"

"At you, you'd say? Well, I don't know: strange case this; nothing quite certain... He might have thought that it was I—in the dark. And where would Winter get bullets to shoot?"

"Isn't there a revolver missing from Clonnach? I missed it the day after Winter vanished."

"Then, you imagine that a mad dog has bitten Winter to set him shooting right and left?"

"Hm. I don't know. If it was a blood-hound, it might go for—So how many of these holes have you now dug?"

"Six, including the one today: I dig, leave them open for two days, to be seen by anyone interested, then fill up. I told those four that the box 'is in one or other of seven places': but, in reality, I almost know that it is in one of two. As it wasn't dropped into the lake, it was probably buried; and, if buried, then buried in the graveyard: for everywhere else traces of the digging would be visible; and they'd be visible between two graves, or in an old grave: so it was buried within the mound of a fresh grave, whose soil was still moist: no traces left then. Now, there were only two fresh graves that day of the broadcasting—Bart Evans was buried the day before, Grace Price the same day: so box should be in one of those two graves. I didn't dig into those because I wanted to lure the burier to come and dig up box, that I might see who it was: so every hole I dug was nearer and nearer to one or other of those two graves, until today my boy digs near foot of Grace Price's; and tonight, I guess, burier may be driven to come again to dig up. Shots last night may have been meant to scare me from watching tonight."

Massingham stood up. "Very good, we'll be there. And, if anybody fancies shooting at me, he may look out for getting it back."

He now went away; and at eleven that night Agnes found him out on his face within a thicket in the rectory-grounds, peering toward the graveyard eastward, southward.

Separately they crept, with rushings from ambush to ambush among the tombs: for the midnight, though sombre, was hardly darksome, having six stars; and from ambush Massingham dodged to the north porch, whence to watch Bart Evans' grave, while Agnes, crouching round the apse to the south side, found the boy, sent him home, and, standing within the nave at the south porch door, eyed toward Grace Price's grave, keeping the door a little open, to peep. But Massingham had found his north door locked.

The six stars became two, ten, six, four... And it was chilly: their temperature fell and fell. One struck; and half-past.

But now—thump... thump: dumbness of a tongue that somewhere mumbled something, heart-beat of the dark, foot-beat on the snow of the clouds' floor...

Upon which she left her post, to step soft across the nave to the north door; and when, on raising the handle of the latch, she found the door bolted, she tapped with her thumbnail; then whispered at the key-hole "Hear the thumping?"

Now, cat-footed, she moved back south; but the moment she looked forth anew her soul flew into her gaze: for yonder, hardly twenty yards off over Grace Price's grave, was a ghost grovelling—or something extraordinarily like a ghost—some form, amorphous, tall, hooded, huge-headed...

Her impulse was to pitch straight to interview that thing; but, her shoulder being still sore, this presence of the tenderness of pain put fear into her feet, which flinched from bringing fresh injuries upon her flesh. What she actually did was to dash across to the north keyhole to whisper "Come! quick!"

And at once Massingham, revolver in hand, was off soft round the west end to dash south to her, while she, too, was dashing back south...

But before she again got to the south porch she was aware of his voice uplifted in the outer night, shouting out something or other (He had shouted to her "Come!," and he had also called aloud "Stop, or I fire!").

And when she, on reaching the south porch, rushed out into the open, it was to see the ghost-thing fleeing southward toward the water, fleeing a little westward also toward the water-steps; and Massingham with both his legs was in pursuit straight southward, to intercept, plying a light, hardly twenty yards behind the spectre.

Nor ever did her legs so gaily ply: for the night was not so deprived of light, but that she could descry that the fugitive now carried a parcel—Massingham's torchlight could even see it a little, and once could see a beard. But the fugitive was moving over smooth footpath, the pursuers jumping in punishment among mounds and tombstones: so that when Massingham was still fifteen yards from the water-steps the apparition vanished down them; and, on dashing to the steps, the two saw the apparition some way off on the water, rowing a boat southward toward The Old House, westward away from it.

"I'll shoot!" Massingham shouted afresh; but this was just a threat, since he was not shot at. In a moment more he was saying "Come, my boat's yonder," and was off eastward, past Sir Patrick, to a spot where the wall was rather broken down, and a willow-tree drooped over the water: within the shadow of which willow he had hidden a boat, not wishing the burier of the box to see any boat, and so be conscious of watchers about. But, on reaching the willow, they could see no boat: and now stood with a feeling of defeat; until she, peering over her torch, pointing, panted at him "There's our boat!," and immediately they were swimming toward the boat, which someone had pushed fifteen yards out...

Within a minute Massingham had happened upon an oar floating; and, swimming with quick little strokes, smitten with chilliness, he called short-breath'd to her "Here's one oar, look out for the other."

The other was soon afterwards sighted by her on the boat's farther side; but, in climbing in on opposite sides together, they fought against each other's struggles, rocking the boat—an old clinker-built thing, not big—and their more haste made less speed: so that when they settled to the oars to row, the fugitive was already remote.

But something darker than the darkness could still be detected ahead; and, as they were two strengths against one, Agnes was quickly giving out a gasp "Gaining! We'll have that box!"

"Aye, forcing him to drop it into the water"—from Massingham's chest at the stroke-oar—"and if it floats—"

Within four minutes the fugitive boat, now stationary, was gained—no one any longer in it, no box, no fingers clinging to the gunwales—their torches showed. So, not lingering many seconds there, they kept on, to overtake the swimmer, only stopping once while Agnes tossed her oar to Massingham, got his torch, then bent over the bow with her torch and his also, watching the water. But, then, these little two-watt torches do not illumine a darkness far: and no swimmer was seen.

"Dodged aside," Massingham panted—for he had rowed straight on southwest, toward the nearest point of land.

But now out of the night arose an outcry: "I am drowning!"—well away south to Agnes' left, to Massingham's right.

A broken outcry that croaked... Massingham heard only a croak, though Agnes actually heard the words.

On which he set to labouring in that direction in such haste, that his left oar "caught a crab," so that he lay back astonished, as when Paul, sun-struck, drunken, saw two suns. This delayed; and when they arrived at the spot of the cry they saw no sign of life.

And suddenly she: "There is somebody—quick!" Her torches' rays, directed upon a shed in bush at the water's edge, had detected some human shape.

And within a minute they were springing ashore, their light shining upon Dr. White-Deighton's eyelids...

Shut eyelids... He was seated at the shed's doorway, streaming wet, his chest gasping for breath below a ghastly face, near his feet a sheet.

Massingham pondered upon him with an under-looking meditation, with nostrils offended at the scent of him, which not all that water could wash off; while Agnes' head hung in sorrow...

Then she quickly fished out of a pocket in which she kept many things a little bottle to hold below his nose; and soon, opening his eyes, he sighed aloud "Forgive me: I have been—in the water."

Then again silence, while Agnes with agitated fingers pinned up her hair a little, then picked up his hat, which lay two yards from him; and, after examining it minutely, put it upon his head.

He then said "You are very good... Forgive me—it was so cold—I shall soon..." now gathering himself up, to stand against the shed, and pant.

And now Agnes, white like White-Deighton, eyeing him, addressed him: "Mr. Massingham means the box that has been dug up."

"Well, well"—Massingham smiled—"doesn't matter: you are just here by chance, Sir; we understand"; and now, picking up the sheet, which richly dripped and trickled, he added "This I will keep, please."

But at this White-Deighton opened his eyes to say "No, I had better keep that"-—putting out his hand.

After which the doctor remained a little longer propped upon the shed, until his jaw chattered "Forgive me—I am penetrated," and he was gone, trailing the drapery, in the direction of the rectory.

The two stood looking northward after his walk, which paused and wandered erratic, like shadows of beech-leaves which wander erratic every breezy day. After which they remained there stationary some minutes, her head low as under a mass of calamity; then they were leaning against their boat's beam, feet in the lake, backs to each other, without speech; till she muttered "No wet on his hat."

Massingham answered "Aye, I saw that; must have left the hat here when he went to the graveyard."

She turned upon him. "'Here' was out of his way!... To go to the graveyard he'd get his boat at the landing-steps —north-east of The Old House; this is south-west."

"Now, where's the use talking like that?" he retorted—so sharply that she started.

And he: "How am I to know his reasons...? Do you want to suggest that it wasn't he in the graveyard?"

At this she started, stood with lids that blinked quick, looking at him. "You saw it? In the graveyard?"

And now he: "Come—to the other boat"; upon which, climbing in, they pushed off with the oars, while a drooping ruin of the moon, looking tired of time and tides, moved up among cumuli, yet illuminating the night.

On coming to the other boat, they minutely examined it without result; and Massingham now remarked "There must be something pretty important about that box: for when he found out our boat under the willows, he'd know we were about, on the watch, yet still he came on—daredevil—desperate. Must have been somewhere on the watch for hours, hoping we'd give up and go away; then, knowing that the moon was due, he got desperate, brought his boat, took off his boots, and was off to the grave... But—how did he hope to get time to dig up the box, with us there watching? He did it in the minute when you left your porch to come across and ask me if I heard the 'thumping': how could he know the very minute you came across? Or was that just his luck?"

Agnes' brow knit. "Hardly just luck... And yet I couldn't possibly be seen—I was inside the church, not out in the porch: how could anyone know when I went across to you?"

Then Massingham: "And the spade he dug with, where's that? That'll be at the grave! let's get it. As to his precious 'black box', we have that—needn't drag the lake, the thing is hereabouts at the bottom, for he couldn't swim with it, especially under water, as he did swim."

"Yes, just near here it is," Agnes agreed, "the boat marks the spot. But someone should be here every moment till we actually have it: I'll stay; you go get the spade"—stepping over into the fugitive's boat.

And there, shivering, she remained fifteen minutes, while he went away and came back, bringing the spade, calling to her in advance "It is one of the church-spades!"

"Not one: that's why he took off his boots... But listen to this: it is a church-spade! I know the spade; and it was in its place in that south room of the tower when I came at nine o'clock—saw it there. Now, nobody entered the church before you and I began our watch from the porches, for I or the boy, standing well outside the church, must have seen him: so the daredevil entered while you and I were watching—entered by that little west door of the tower, then into the nave, then to the south room of the tower, to get the spade, stepping within two yards of your back; and in the tower he waited—near you—meaning to lay you low may-be in some silent way, if you didn't move; and the instant you did move to come to ask if I heard the 'thumping', he slipped out through the south door to dig—the daredevil!"

"Breathing makes a sound, if you have ears," she mourned: "every step in velvet makes a sound... Oh, no, I don't like people who can't hear and see!"—for, "vain" of her senses, aware that intelligence is the child of their perfect virtue, she now despised herself.

But Massingham administered comfort, saying "Your attention was engaged elsewhere. On a Coronation-day a pick-pocket doesn't bother to go soft and slow, collects watch-chains off-hand, and the star-gazers are none the wiser... Well, now, I'll stay here while you find Grimes; he'd be on duty tonight round about Elberleigh: send him to keep guard here... quick as you can, or I shall shiver myself to bits"—stepping now into the fugitive's boat; she stepped into the other, asking him, as she settled to the oars, if he had heard the thumping after all?

"And as to the black box," she said—"may I be present when it is opened tomorrow?"

In the graveyard she tripped to linger a little at Grace Price's grave, to see the hole dug by the ghost—a hole less than three feet deep! Then on with fleet feet to an Adversane deep in sleep, and on toward Elberleigh, whereabouts she found out Grimes seated, with his bicycle, on a seat on the green; then back to Adversane for bed, there to rouse her Lizzie Davis, who exclaimed at the apparition of her in that drowsy hour—an apparition heavy with wet, draggled, laggard, her hair lax, like a Bacchant come back drunk from some carouse; and so, sighing, to lie down, tired out.

Chapter XXII
THE BOX OBSTINATE

FULL of curiosity and surmise as to the contents of the black box, she breakfasted hurriedly, looking through the books lent her by Soames, the antiquary; and now was about to set out, when Gilfillan turned up, on the chance of seeing her returned from her expedition to Leigh; and he went on a knee to her hand, never having yet ventured upon his right to try the flavour of her lips: for she had said to him "My poor head full of deaths; when the case is over I will tell you 'here I am, squeeze me' "; so now, kissing her hands, he said to her "Where have you been from me?"

"Only at Leigh. Come—up to The Old House: will tell you going... We've got that same black box, look."

So they set out together; and, on getting to the graveyard-steps, rowed out to Grimes, the constable, to find with him two boys, sent by Massingham to dive; but when Agnes looked into the boat to see the box, no box was in it.

"What, not got it yet?" she asked; and Grimes answered "Been diving half-an-hour, too."

Presently came a hail across the water—from Massingham at the graveyard-steps: so Agnes and Gilfillan rowed back to bring him; and "Box up?" he asked them at once.

But his presence made no difference: the boys dived farther from the boat, making many a dive, for the depth was less than two fathoms; but the sun climbed to eleven o'clock, and still the box was missing.

Massingham then said "He must have managed to swim some way with it... Anyway, we have it: it is in the lake, since it could never have been taken all the way ashore in the time."

Gilfillan now suggested "Mayn't he have come back during the night and dived it up?"

But Agnes said "That's impossible: moon came up, lake has been lit up ever since, and somebody always watching."

They then arranged for Gilfillan and Agnes to remain there, so that Grimes, tired now, might go to land with Massingham; and they were changing boats to effect this, when Agnes asked Massingham "Do you smell anything?"

And when Gilfillan answered "No," and Grimes, too, she said "Fanciful Anne! Every now and again I seem to detect—"

When he came back after an hour he came multiplied, in two boats, with four Grimeses having grapnels and dragnets: whereupon one region of the water was assigned to each boat, and the job of finding the box was commenced with method.

It was now past noon, the sun pouring abroad an Autumn warmth over all that Old House region and its throngs of leafage, which were rocking soft, with song, to the winds of that midday, Agnes, meanwhile, on the graveyard-wall near Sir Patrick's grave, gazing away, with Gilfillan, at the dragging, every minute expecting to see the black box brought up. Gilfillan went away for lunch, but she still lingered there, with a growing astonishment at that box still missing. Whenever her gaze got weary of watching the dragging she bent it upon the water immediately below, half-expecting to see afresh that eruption of dust, purplish stuff surging up, which had previously perturbed her: but now nothing of it appeared.

At last she gave up, and after peering at the bullet-hole in the south porch-door, went away.

Later in the evening Massingham, in passing her window in Adversane, reported to her "No box... This beats me, I confess."

And he: "What's the use talking? We know that it is there all right, but it isn't there, and knowing won't put it there. We have to deal with the cunningest fox—"

"Useless, useless: thing's vanish'd, I tell you." But the next day again, distracted, he dragged the lake in rainy weather: and, offended at failure, failed again.

Chapter XXIII
WARRANT OF ARREST

THAT afternoon Agnes, standing alone in the graveyard, suddenly gave vent to a shout of "Ho!," then, after harkening some time, decided to walk fast out to a domain named "Old Bute Shooting-box," beyond the rectory, where she remained some two hours: so that she was out when Gilfillan went to her to report the renewed failure to discover the black box; but presently came in with a mallet and chisel, borrowed from Balchin, the builder, in order to dig out of the church-door the bullet which had been shot at her; and when at once she asked about the box, and Gilfillan answered "Just no sign of it," she threw up her eyes with "Now! how mysterious. Thing's there in the lake, I tell you: why is it not found?... Oh, well, born blind: mother lavished her intelligence upon the boys, and left girls soppy up above... Come with me."

"Not much now. No, must go: else Massingham will be after that bullet, and then there may be ructions..."

So they set out, and, stepping up the "private road," rain-drops pattering upon her parasol like rice-spray and frying fats, she said of it "Gentle rain!... The oddity that it should fall at all! or not crash down in local cataracts, drowning parishes—comes numberless. I wonder if it is somewhere registered in the records how many drops have fallen since that day when rain first fell on earth, when, may-be, a flame-tempest of that age chased it pelting—strange wretch, huge fugitive born outcast—pelting over ocean and over shore, and all at once the crowd of lords, watching that outcome brought about, clapped all their palms with shouts of applause—I say, look"—nodding toward a mulatto, almost black, who, with Marie Moran, the lady's-maid, was leaning out of a motor-car that had come out of Clonnach gate, the driver lying beneath the car, fumbling with something; and she added "Came last night? Or today? No, last night... Swell that he is: teeth sneers at music of the spheres, God's sun and moon not good enough for him. Going away now by the 3.17: Marie going with, to take his ticket, see him off."

"Chess, too"—from Gilfillan. "Lady's-man"—from Agnes. "Domestic servant"—from Gilfillan. "Came to stay some days, but been sent away"—from Agnes.

And she: "Came light—nothing but pyjamas in that parcel, with strop and razor: shape of strop shows through. He'd have cut out strop, if he'd come for just one night. How do you know he plays chess? The medal?"

"That's so—common medal—from 'Società dei Giocatori di Scacchi.'.. Yes, came last night: for, if before, we should have known about him, and, if this morning, some mud-spots would now be dry on his boots—came before the rain commenced. And you call him 'lady's-man' because of the bracelet—a memento—lately given him: too tight; he won't stand that long; has been perspiring, too, in contact with a dressing-gown, say—reddish stain on his collar: that's why he scorns his Maker, the victorious soul. And he 'plays the violin' because of those old dents in his fingers—from stopping intervals: accomplished chap, like some Latin domestics."

"Yes, that's right"—from her: "but what's he here to do? Strange sight in The Three Villages, like a giraffe idling in Regent Street... Yes, a domestic—cleans silver—brick-dust impregnating forefinger; and Italian, as you say—the medal—and he lifts voice talking to Marie, she not knowing Italian well: I heard 'aootomobile'—sun-tanned—Southern Italy perhaps—"

"Stay, I'll go after them"—suddenly from Agnes—"you take the mallet and chisel, pick out the bullet: wait there till I come back"—the motor now moving past them; and she trotted after.

It went to the station, and when it was returning upon her she asked for "a lift," and drove back to Clonnach-gate with Marie; then walked on to the graveyard where Gilfillan waited, sitting listless on the wall over the water. He got up to go to meet her with the news "Bullet gone."

Up she cast her palms, started smartly for the porch, to see the door neatly repaired there where the bullet had buried itself; and paled she stood now, mourning to Gilfillan "Always, always, too late! What is to become of me? Massingham has it—got a workman, see. And I bet that he finds at Dr. White-Deighton's a revolver that the bullet fits: then he'll be hot on a warrant—"

"And, oh," she said in distress, "I do so want to go away this day! But I sha'n't now—no, I'll wait and see—"

"Two places—don't know which first, muddled that we are up above! But I won't—I'll wait, I'll stay... Good-bye, come to me tomorrow: going now to interview that doctor-man—"

"One moment! Agnes!... No, don't you get into any jam with that man. Massingham is rather astray at some points, I reckon, but—"

"No! that's his concern. Personally I am now washing my hands of the whole jimbang, I'm through with my investigation, drawing up my report—preparatory, by the way, to being joined in wedlock—within two weeks now, according to contract. Do you realise, kid?"—tenderly said; and she hung her head, meditating it, then drew her palm down his arm, with "Poor Glinten! liking to be tied to a hurricane's skirts."

And he: "Yes, feels nice: switchback stuff... So don't you; sit with me in the porch a little—Listen if you can hear an odd sort of thumping going on somewhere in—"

"But you won't now, no good listening," she told him; and added "No, must go now: am still a maid pro tem, free to rush about on my own"—with a laugh she was away, leaving him beneath his umbrella like a palm planted there.

And at a trot she went, till at the top of the doctor's lane she came upon the doctor's gardener, asked if he had seen anything of Massingham, and on his answer "Just passed him," started afresh into running.

She found Massingham still there in the grounds before the house, bent over a revolver's magazine; and he told her "I spotted it the minute I entered the gate—lay on that slab over the door, carelessly flung up. Two cartridges still in, see—R.L. 4, flat-nosed: three were fired at you that night. I've got two of those three."

"Oh, but"—she shrank reproachful—"if the thing was visible like that, wasn't it put there by someone who wants to throw suspicion upon the doctor? I don't think that one 'flings up carelessly' what one is hiding."

He answered coldly. "You mayn't have sufficient experience to realise how careless the wrong-doer can be, often: flurried, that's it."

"Oh, dear," she lamented, "I would bet... And now—what? Arrest impending, may-be?"

"Oh, as to that," Massingham answered, "an official 'has no tongue'—as Mr. Speaker puts it."

"Which means "; but now she started, and he started, at the presence with them of Miss O'Connor, who laughed a little, asking "Are we all here to see the doctor? Who goes first?"

Massingham answered "Well, if you ladies consider my time the most precious"—smiling upon her highly-coloured youth, pigmented in gold, and blue, and bloom of highly-coloured rosiness, fresh-dyed like cherries.

And she: "Yes, of course, you first... Well, Miss Heygate, still on the qui vive?"

"Never mind, the dead smile—grin on becoming skeletons: laugh for gladness because they can no longer cry."

Agnes sighed. "Dry laughter, no heart in it, doesn't shake their obvious ribs... Give me a good old cry now and again, and the windy wistful days dashed with wet—like that dash of rain on your cheek, pretty, sad-sweet. I bet the doctor will tell you that it is like dew on roses."

"Aye. And I wonder if he sees in your loveliness that elusive something—I have long been trying to define it—been on the tip of my tongue—But now I know the name of it."

And still Foy's eyes dwelt a little on her, until all at once she stepped away to follow Massingham, who was now rapping at the porch-door; and she followed him in, to be led to a room on the ground-floor, where Agnes saw them left by a maid-servant, who then went to see if the doctor would receive the officer; and, on coming back, the maid led Massingham out toward the stair; left Foy alone.

But in a minute Foy also slipped out toward the stair—to listen, Agnes guessed, at some door, to Massingham's interview; soon after which a hum of Massingham's and the doctor's talk came down to Agnes, who then got her feet up on a window-ledge, and, clinging to a string-course, listened... Hum, hum... her eyes ogling at her right ear's lust, which stretched agape awaiting, she saying to herself "Lying on a couch, not well after his wetting.".. and she heard "No, it is not a truth that I ever had a revolver: my interest is in revolvers that revolve round suns, hum, hum"—her hearing troubled by the brushing of the drizzle's shins, as insects rub their little legs together; then: "I know nothing of the digging up of any box"; and from Massingham: "No, Sir? Still, if you saw fit to reveal where the thing now is, hum, hum, you may say that you don't know—" Then the doctor: "Well, if there was a box, I do know—or conjecture —where it now is"; and Massingham: "Ah, you say that now, hum, hum, come, Sir, you might let us have it: where is that box?"

"It is not your affair"—from the doctor—"Why not abandon this unnatural occupation of ferreting into private lives, and become a mechanic, i.e., a scientist, like me?.".. "I think I'd rather hum, hum, hum, but as to that box's whereabouts? Come, Sir.".. "I will not tell you. Possibly, if Miss Heygate questioned me, I might tell her, but I do not see why, hum, hum..." Now she was conscious of Massingham's going out of the room; and presently was conscious of voices to her left in another room—Foy's voice, Massingham's—upon which she let herself down without sound from that window-ledge to hoist herself upon another, and hist to Foy's busy whispering through the drizzle's whispering business... "You intend to arrest him—admitted it to Miss Heygate just now: I heard you. But you won't, if I beg you. He and I are—sweethearts.".. "So I conjecture, Miss O'Connor"—Massingham's voice—"you've made a will in his favour. But that, I'm afraid, can't influence an officer."

"What do you care?"—from Foy—"it is only a question of a salary. Throw that away: I'll treble it for you."

"O, Miss O'Connor!"—a sigh—"to say this to a man!" And Foy: "You work hard for a pittance. I undertake—"

"O, Miss O'Connor! to tamper—" Agnes could guess at the abandonment of his arms, at his back bent beneath his burden of temptation, while his turmoil of sighings vented like sighings of a lady overtaken with the fainting-sickness of desire... And Foy: "We all love luxury and pleasure—No, give it up: no arresting. Doubtless he was mixed up somehow in my uncle's death, but you don't care. Only this morning my lawyers wrote me of some odd sum of £11,000 lying idle in some bank, nobody knows what to do with it—you take it over—"

"O, Miss O'Connor! you talk, Miss O'Connor... look here, I wouldn't listen to such a thing, not if it was ten times..."

Soon after which she and Massingham came out of the house: whereupon she tripped to the first window-ledge on which Agnes had stood, then to the second, noted the marks of wet left by Agnes' soles, and whispered aside to Agnes "There was no secret... By the way, it would be well if you do not see the doctor until you have spoken with me: you will see the reason then. Come and dine at Clonnach."

Agnes meditated it with raised brows, shaking her face slowly a little; then "Many thanks, but I'm afraid I must see the doctor now—am going away somewhere—"

"Well, I think you will regret it," Foy mentioned with a nod, and rejoined Massingham.

They two then walked away toward the gate, Foy not having seen the doctor, after all; and Agnes was going to rap, exalted now at the prospect of learning where the black box was, having heard the doctor say to Massingham that he might tell this to her; but now her eye-corner caught sight of Gilfillan standing beyond the gate, and she saw Foy trip to pounce upon him, to impress something upon him in a hurry of earnestness; then Gilfillan came on in, and Agnes started at his surly and determined face, asking herself "What does he want?"

"To see White-Deighton," he muttered, sulky, paled; and he rapped, then scribbled something on a visiting-card, which he handed to a maid.

Both names were sent up together; and while they waited in a dining-room, she asked him "Why are you cross?"

And within five minutes Gilfillan had gone up and was back down in the hall: for, infected with some germ of jealousy, he had merely asserted to the doctor that he had certain rights in respect of Miss Heygate, and had reasons to deprecate for the present any private interview between Dr. White-Deighton and Miss Heygate; whereupon the doctor had said "It shall be as you wish," and had bowed him out. So that, a minute later, the maid came down to Agnes with the statement "The doctor is not very well, he regrets being unable to receive Miss Heygate."

At the same time, seeing Gilfillan going toward the gate, he having passed out without coming back to her, she ran out to catch him in the lane, and "Checkmated!" she said, pretending levity, but ached, frustrated: "can't see any doctor... Never mind, gulp down your medicine, Agnes, and be glad every day in the Lord."

And presently she: "But now the point is this: that Miss O'Connor is offering Massingham money not to arrest the doctor; and though Massingham is not the man to accept it, just the wish of such as she must be an influence on him: so let's tempt him now to a conference: for, if just now we can get him shaken by your deductions and by mine, that may throw him off any arresting."

"I'm afraid I'm less keen on this machine than you seem—" Gilfillan began to say.

But she: "Oh, Glinten! think a little—what has that to do with it? Surely, good is the opposite of evil. Evil is pain, Good is pleasure—can have no other meaning. Now, every life does some evil—must kill: men kill eggs, eggs kill yolks. In the case of the caveman, Bumpem, he brained with his club most people whom he met, gave some pain; but how if he invented ploughing? wasn't he a good man by millions of pleasures given? White-Deighton's medicine was dreaded; perhaps he poisoned O'Connor; but how if he has added three equations to mathematics, has unearthed eternal truth, through which billions of beings will be jubilating within the sunrise and holding public worship within the sunset? Isn't he a good man by billions?"

"Glinten, is that the point?" she earnestly asked: "it is a world that matters, not persons."

"So that's settled: you're a brick. Go on, then, to my place; I will wait here till Massingham comes out, then manage him."

Upon which Gilfillan walked on, while she took her stand at Clonnach gate, thinking within herself "How comes he to 'know where the black box is'?... So where is it? Not on the land, not in the water... only the air left..."

Forty minutes afterwards she was walking toward Adversane with Massingham in tow.

Chapter XXIV
THE TRUTH-SEEKERS

SHE ushered Massingham into her "parlour" with the spider's triumph, the harlot's flush at business brisk, fisher of men; then out she flew afresh to push her Lizzie Davis, whispering "Bottle of best port, four best cigars, quick!," then back to sit between Massingham's and Gilfillan's easy-chairs beside the fire, night now down, with sounds of rain-drops fretting inveterate; but she lit no lamp; only tossed-on coals, until a pillar of flame was prating the stream of oratory of some prophet preaching with jerking knees, which ever jerk-up his dishevelled urgency and passion of tatters; and they conversed some time about a by-election at the Forest of Dene, pretending unconcern as to the object of their meeting: Gilfillan handed his Dunhill lighter of shagreen to Massingham, they smoked, sipped; Agnes even tripped away to the window, hearing a noising of the organ in the heavens pouring out organ-waves of sound, and there on high a green light gliding was seen, grandly like a planet gadding, then a red showed, a white, which roamed away, becoming dumb thunder rumbling remotely, and a rumour of warfare swarming along the walls of heaven, and silence, and heavy night.

She then went back to sit within the firelight; and now Massingham: "Well, let us have it. Who starts?"

Massingham examined his cigar. "Well, as you will ... Of course, all this is unofficial, and in strict confidence... Strange case this, dark deed: and I welcome now the chance of comparing notes with such as you two. So I put my cards on the table, and I say that White-Deighton put mercurochrome into O'Connor's medicine, and that Monk knew—there you are. Is it Yes or No?"

"Very good"—from Massingham—"let's see. Who poisoned him? Had a motive? Take the money-motive. He left money to Miss O'Connor, to Mrs. Sayce, to Monk, to Hester Hayes, to O'Loughlin, and others not then in England: any of those five may have wished him dead—Hester especially, who, being an expectant mother, may have had a longing for money. But no, Hester didn't, nor O'Loughlin. When he cried out and died both these were in the inner hall with those round the sick servant-girl's bed—had just come in by the front. O'Loughlin had gone spying upon Hester's private business out at The Old House, then had been helping to get the lock-gates shut: so, as the back-stair was blocked with those tree-trunks, and there are only two stairs, neither of these two administered the medicine, which, the pathologist says, was drunk just before death—since the poison was found in the stomach, almost all. Now, Monk had left him quite eight minutes before he died (had run down to get the sick girl's bed out of the flood-water, and was in the inner hall when he cried out): so it was hardly Monk who administered. Who did, then? Let's see. Those in the hall round the maid's bed catch sight of 'a shadow which dashes down the stair', and vanishes: whose shadow? As O'Loughlin had not then come in, he might have been upstairs, might have got up by climbing that stackpipe; or Hester might; but no: each ran in just after the shadow was seen—no time for them to cast it, run to the back, climb down the pipe (the back-stair being blocked), and run round to the front. None of the household, then, was upstairs; only the baronet: it was his shadow. That racket of the tree-trunks crashing in must have woke and shocked him to the heart; the slightest shock meant distress to him: so, finding himself alone in that unaccountable row, he springs out of bed, runs out—nobody about—runs to the front-stair, casts the shadow; but now, finding himself collapsing, doubles back to bed; and, though shy of White-Deighton's medicine, he now takes a dose to allay his pain; in swallowing which, he becomes aware of poison—for he's a chemist—is afresh shocked to the heart, cries out, and, pointing at the bottle, dies—of shock more than of the poison. Anyway, neither Hester nor O'Loughlin administered; nor they hadn't put-in the poison earlier: for Monk admitted that the bottle was under his eye from the minute the doctor's boy handed it to him until he left the bedside at O'Loughlin's summons to go to hear the Banshee. This clears Hester and O'Loughlin. As for Mrs. Sayce, she, we know, was away at Staines. As for Miss O'Connor, she, as I know, was at Leigh. You fancy, perhaps, that she was in a train—"

"Ah, you knew. People think that she came from London to Clonnach in a train; but, in fact, she drove herself and her maid, Marie, in a motor-car to Leigh; and it was at Leigh, five miles from Clonnach, that, at 8.48, she entered the London train for here. Was at Leigh two hours in The Beaufort. What for? It was to keep an appointment with White-Deighton—"

And Massingham: "No, Sir, we don't do business like that—don't go by guessing. You're welcome to see this telegram"—picking it out of his leather case—"the P.O. duplicate of a wire sent to White-Deighton from Leigh at 6.18: 'I am here. Mary.' Miss O'Connor arrives at The Beaufort about six, waits for White-Deighton a little; then Mrs. Quilter, the inn-keeper, is asked to send off the wire. It is signed 'Mary'; and, though 'Mary' is a name of Miss O'Connor, she is not called 'Mary': so there's secrecy here. And the car has arrived with a front-wheel puncture—punctured with a scissors deliberately, for I've seen it—punctured that the stopping at Leigh might look natural to her maid, and the meeting with White-Deighton seem a chance meeting. That meeting, then, was secret, and was important. The baronet, you see, was opposed to any sweetness between his niece and White-Deighton—wanted her to marry the Earl of Wortley, his cousin. Before becoming the earl Viscount Phipps-Thralby had not been well-off, didn't marry, waiting for the death of the late earl, who had been infirm some months; and it was in Sicily he got the news of the late earl's death, just before Miss O'Connor left Sicily to come to England. She was now bound to marry soon: and I have no proof that she wrote at once to White-Deighton 'Meet me at Leigh: things are at a crisis', no proof that she intended a secret marriage, to be arranged at Leigh: but is any proof necessary? We know that there was an appointment at Leigh; we can see that she is 'gone' on the doctor, who has soft eyes and a soft beard—haunts him—lately made a will in his favour—would give much, as I chance to know, to prevent his arrest now. But the doctor failed to keep the appointment: that's certain, for between 6.20 and 8.20 Mrs. Quilter, the inn-keeper, had several little talks in the Commercial Room with Miss O'Connor, whose whispering way of talking all this countryside knows of: all that time Miss O'Connor was alone, looking at magazines, her maid having retired to lie down with face-ache: so White-Deighton never went. You see, a secret marriage with an engaged lady is an incorrect thing, which may tarnish the name of a high-up scientist: and since anything secret was only made necessary by the fact of the lady's uncle being alive, the doctor may have been too occupied that evening here at Clonnach to keep the appointment at Leigh, may have been devising means to shock the baronet, and force him to take his medicine: for the baronet had frankly told him that none of it would be taken. And, if that opening of the flood-gates which would shock the baronet swept Hester Hayes off her feet, that would be two birds with one stone: for the matter of Hester was urgent before Miss O'Connor should turn up at Clonnach, and learn how things were with Hester: to learn this might keep her faithful to the earl, whom—"

"Well, I'm sunk!" Gilfillan broke-in here, puffing smoke upward, one leg hung over his chair-arm: "you know quite a lot, Massingham. I had a notion that our doctor plays around with the girls, but didn't quite know it: does it pretty smart, that man."

"That's so"—from Gilfillan, while Agnes sat still, her fingers clamped together, gazing eagerly as at fairies frisking round the flame's Christmas-tree; and anon her lids winked quick.

And Massingham: "Aye, rather fast little lady, Hester. I have here photographs of three of her letters to one Lizzie Baker, cousin of hers, in Quebec. In February she writes 'They are all alike, the men, like flies round a honey-pot. Worse luck, the doctor doesn't look as if he was taking any just now, and he's the nicest in all the world.' Men on the brain, you see: her girlhood's been stirred-up, she's out now for stern woman's-work. In April she writes 'There's Winter, there's old Monk with his spectacles, there's O'Loughlin with his nose on one side, there's Sir Patrick himself, I fancy, a bit, and now at last there's him, I'll bet. Last Friday the bread-knife cut my hand, and I ran to him with it, though there was no need really, you understand, and he held it a good minute, looking into my eyes, made me feel—don't mention it!' That was April; in June she writes 'Those that play with fire must expect to get burned, I suppose. Anyway, I'm in for it now, it looks like; and now no doubt he'll drop me like a hot iron'—'he', by itself, in these letters meaning White-Deighton. I have no later letter, but some time between April and June she and White-Deighton were seen together one evening near The Old House; and I have evidence of three visits to the doctor's house between June and September; thrice seen, she may have gone twenty times—lonely spot: so we have intimacy. And in Hester's trunk I have found a medicine-bottle nearly empty—same make as White-Deighton's, same label—containing savin and ergotine, the Analyst reports. These are 'catamenials with abortive qualities.' And there's no doubt which doctor made the attempt: White-Deighton, when questioned—"

"Aye, bent his neck in his mighty way—admitted it: couldn't help, in fact. Hence, on Miss O'Connor's sudden coming home, he'd wish Hester out of the way."

"Say, not unlike the Borgias, this doctor," Gilfillan put-in: "in the little old twentieth century, too."

And Massingham: "As for that, doctors, butchers, and returned soldiers think more lightly of death than others—accustomed to death. Anyway, we have two facts: the doctor did not keep the appointment at Leigh, and the baronet did at last take medicine on the coming of the flood: two connected facts, no doubt: for the doctor was then at The Fishponds. And Hester Hayes was there—without doubt to keep an appointment which the doctor considered more urgent than the Leigh appointment. When he made the appointment he may only have meant to order Hester to be off from Clonnach; but, since he meant to make the flood, it would now occur to him to go, not to the spot of the rendezvous, but straight to the flood-gates, and to call Hester that way with a yodling such as milkmen use, meaning 'Here I am, come, to where the flood will rid me of you.' A guess that? But there was some sort of calling: for O'Loughlin, tracking Hester, hears it—thinks it is the Banshee—"

"But the second Banshee?" Gilfillan exclaimed—"heard during the flood by Monk and Mary Skerrett upstairs? Not our doctor yodling again?"

"No, I've found out what that was," Massingham answered: "heard it myself—passing last Monday after the rain by that 'area' at the foot of the house-back. Rain-water within the 'area' runs out through a grating—runs soundlessly, until only three or four bucketfuls of it are being sucked out, when it suddenly begins a blubbing, and goes guggling out. So here was your second Banshee—last of the flood-water blubbing through: any odd noise that night would have been the Banshee. Anyway, on hearing the first Banshee yodling, O'Loughlin darts back to call Monk to hear—is in an eerie mood, for some tumblers have been cracking, that afternoon the baronet had burned the papers out of the black box, like one about to die—"

Here Agnes, agaze at the flame-fairies, muttered "'Boolis' they were, pamphlets, not 'papers.'"

"O'Loughlin says 'books' "—from Massingham—"and some may have been books—he'd hardly notice much. Some at least were papers connected with a family-secret—there's nothing else to think—like those in that scrivania which you and I chanced to set fire to one night: a scandal involving the cousin-branch, the Earls of Wortley, which scandal I have lately got wind of: that's why the papers were so guarded from the eyes of Miss O'Connor, the earl's ladylove. But Monk knew of the scandal—that's easily seen: for, since the baronet always kept the key of the black box, he certainly kept the key of the scrivania too, whose papers were still more secret, being doubly-guarded in that odd way with the phosphorus and matches. But the scrivania's key was found on Monk's body: so Monk took it after the baronet's death; and he'd take it in order to place it in Miss O'Connor's way, so that she, too, might get to know of the scandal—as she does, I can see, now—and be furnished with some decent excuse for breaking with the earl prior to marrying the doctor. This is guessing; but legitimate guessing: for we can't doubt that Monk and the doctor were in league. The doctor would understand that without the connivance of Monk, who was the baronet's right hand, nothing could be done to the baronet: Monk would surely witness the death-struggle. And that may have been one object of the flood—to draw Monk away from being present at that death-struggle, for such a sight might test his loyalty to the doctor. Monk was attached to the baronet—there's no doubt—they two were pretty intimate. During the death-day the baronet takes Monk to show where Monk is to bury him: felt a heart-attack impending—that was why—no intention to kill himself: for a man poisoning himself doesn't put the poison into medicine, then take the medicine. Anyway, they two were intimate. But Monk was attached to Miss O'Connor, too—it was the family he was attached to, I fancy. And, on the viscount becoming the earl, if the doctor represented to Monk that Miss O'Connor's happiness depended upon her marrying the doctor at once, that the baronet kicked against it, that the baronet, being wretchedly ill, was better dead, and that Monk after the marriage would be a made man apart from the paltry £7000 due on the baronet's death, then Monk might consent to be an accomplice. Anyway, he did. That outcry of his on the night when the exhumation was broadcast—that was never the outcry of a principal, now: no murderer will cry out 'if I wasn't the fool!' before witnesses. It meant 'fool to be drawn into any of it!'—unselfish guilt; complicity. On the death-night his hand upsets the medicine-bottle—doing his bit. On the day after death he goes to the doctor—doubtless taking the bottle; interview lasts half-an-hour—I have evidence. The same evening, while Miss O'Connor is at dinner, the doctor comes, Monk leads him secretly upstairs—to see if any signs of poisoning were showing; as some signs were: for in an hour Monk has the face under a face-cloth. The next day the body is coffined; the following evening screwed-down. Why? Because, said Monk, 'the weather was hot on us': but I have it from the Meteorological Office that that 8th of September was not hot. And all that day until the screwing-down Monk sticks to the body—afraid, you see, that a nun or anybody may raise the face-cloth: for now over England tongues have begun to wag. Even during the screwing-down Monk is uneasy, moves about, looks out, sees Hester Hayes tripping through The New Garden toward The Old House—her last trip; she has managed to escape the flood with a drenching, but this evening her feet run to her death; death by what means we don't know, her body was so far gone when dragged up: it could just be discovered that she was pregnant. But that day she had been to Marchstow, had taken a cottage—rich now with her £300: and at the rendezvous in the evening she may have refused to be sent away, so raising a tempest of enmity. Where was Dr. White-Deighton then? Not at home; no evidence as to where. But evidence enough of his taking fright at the wagging of tongues that began even before Hester's disappearance; indeed, from the day after the baronet's death there was reason to fear official interference; so steps were taken to destroy evidences of the poison: for an uncommon poison like mercurochrome 220, found in a body, would at once point to a doctor's hand. Now, as to that, we have these facts: a little 'Clark cell' and a scalpel were found in the coffin at exhumation; marks of a string tied tight above the ankles; a wound in the left instep; some slime on the pyjama-jacket; two saw-cuts across the coffin's bottom. As to the string-marks, I say that, the legs at death being a little open, Monk was bidden to tie them together, and then, before the coffining, to remove the string. The legs would then again be pressed slowly open in the coffin by the thighs' fleshiness, as rigor-of-death passed off: so, if two bits of metal were placed within the coffin, at the sides, outside the feet, the feet would open out and touch the metals within some days after the screwing-down: that could be counted upon. The metals could be put in just before the screwing-down, and nobody would notice them—hidden by the trousers. They'd have attached to them two wires, running up, inside the trousers, to a little cell under the jacket; and the cell would spark between its terminals as soon as the feet opened out enough to touch the metals: for then there'd be contact through the body. So, if a fuse lay where the spark passed, the fuse could set fire to some inflammable stopper, like celluloid, say, in a flask; and the flask's contents would then flow out—vitriol, say, to eat through, vitriol mixed with some chemical to decompose the mercurochrome in the stomach—"

Here Gilfillan put in "I guess the undertakers would have noticed the flask's bulge under the jacket..."

But Massingham: "No, pyjama-jackets are slack; the flask would be imbedded in cotton-wool or something to camouflage its outlines; and, then, Monk took care that the screwing-down was done in a fading twilight—no lights lit: a flat flask would hardly be noticeable... Of course, White-Deighton could have removed the stomach surgically in a post-mortem; but he gave a death-certificate before the wagging of tongues had startled his ears; and, after giving it, there was no way of destroying the evidences of poisoning, except within the closed coffin. But we know that the whole scheme miscarried: no corrosive stuff ever flowed from that flask. The instructions given to Monk may have been hurriedly given; Monk may have been presumed to know more about cells then he did know: anyway, he bungled. I believe that he put the cell and wires in position without ever attaching the wires to the cell: so no spark passed. And he'd not know of the failure till the night before the funeral, when he made the two saw-cuts in the coffin's bottom, and took out the flask still full. He had been instructed to order a coffin with its bottom screwed-on to the sides, not with its sides nailed-on to the bottom, so that a bit of the bottom could be readily removed, in case the noise of tongues grew loud before the funeral: for, if exhumation followed, the flask and cell would be found in the coffin, and the doctor's hand would be made manifest. And the noise of tongues had greatly grown: so the apparatus must be taken out. But someone may come in at any moment—in fact, Miss O'Connor herself twice went in during the night; and, though the nun is asleep there on her knees, drugged by a butler, the thing must be done quick. It would take a goodish time to unscrew the coffin-cover, or the whole bottom; so, when the wreaths are thrown off, and the coffin's turned over, two saw-cuts are made toward the head, two screws unscrewed, the piece of bottom removed, the flask taken out, the two wires drawn out. But one, or both, of the two metal pieces used to make contact was a scalpel—probably a scalpel of the baronet's which Monk had chanced to see in looking for something metallic; and the scalpel's wire, on being drawn, slips off it. Monk can't find, or can't reach, the scalpel; nor he can't find the cell, little as a thumb, which, on the coffin being turned over, has rolled off the stomach; or may-be in his flurry he forgets about the cell! Anyway, cell and scalpel are left in. He takes out the flask and wires; screws-on the bit of bottom again. Then he neatly fills up with saw-dust the half-inch saw-cuts at the bottom's edges: has varnish ready. The undertaker told the jury that he did not notice the saw-cuts because they were in the bottom, not in the coffin-sides; but, then, that was hardly reasonable talk: for why shouldn't saw-cuts in the bottom's sides be as noticeable as saw-cuts in the coffin's sides? No, the saw-cuts were camouflaged—varnished over—that was why no one noticed. And there was a cloth spread on the floor to take the sawdust: for I have examined the carpet with a glass, and not found one speck. And no saw-dust was found on the body's back: so, after turning the coffin over to saw, he must have turned it back upon its bottom before closing-up the hole, so that all the saw-dust might fall out. We can be sure, anyway, that he did turn the coffin over to saw, and not saw awkwardly underneath, for it was that turning-over and disturbance which caused the 'slime' found on the jacket to flow from the body somewhere; and it was the turning-over that caused the scalpel to inflict that wound found in the foot. So much for that side of the mystery... And we can fancy the dismay when the flask, still full, is taken back to the doctor, and he hears of the cell and scalpel left in. On top of which disaster comes upon him the broadcasting—exhumation impending! He decides to get at the body that night—long job—takes an expert four hours to dig a five-foot grave in winter, seven hours in summer; and this was a six-foot grave: for Monk had so instructed the grave-digger in—"

"Instinct to bury the thing deep away, I take it. You know that he did instruct?"

"So, the broadcasting done, the doctor hurries out of Clonnach drawing-room—'to see the sick girl'; insists on going alone. What he wants is to whisper a word to Monk, the word 'come', the word 'now', and to procure some sort of container to hold the stomach; then he—or Monk—-is up to the laboratory, sees, seizes the black box, now empty of its papers; then, presumably, the doctor is off home to get instruments, screw-driver, gloves; then is at the grave with Monk. Little guessing here: we almost know that the foot-prints made were the doctor's and Monk's; and Monk's boots were afterwards dragged out of the lake. But all is not plain sailing with them: the night's dark and drizzly—can't see; and a lantern would be most risky, until the countryside's asleep: so the digging begins late, nor they aren't expert diggers—that's why daylight overtook them before they were four feet down. By then the gentleman's hands are so sore, they make a blood-speck on his spade. He gives up. His burst gloves, if taken home, or flung into the lake, may betray him: so he tosses them into the black box, which, now soiled by its night's outing, he buries. The next evening, when I arrived, he had his right hand in a glove—palm unpresentable. As for Monk, the man was an object of pity when I saw him in bed that night—white like dough; his hands had corns—"

"Did you see the doctor's left hand?"—from Agnes agaze at the flame's mania of aspiration, that ever failed, and recommenced to scale.

Massingham smiled. "No: I wanted to, that's why I shadowed him, and was in the shrubbery under the rectory-window when you called down to me. I already knew that he was hoping to get out of the country—I had P.O. duplicates of cablegrams sent by him to Columbia University: for, under pressure of his danger, he had abandoned the idea of marriage with Miss O'Connor; and—if I may mention it—that night he proposed to Miss Heygate to accompany him to America: for, underneath the godlike appearance that he puts on, this gentleman is evidently addicted to the fair sex; moreover, he may have wished to win-over in Miss Heygate a dangerous detective. She, however, did not see eye-to-eye with him, for she has since made Mr. Gilfillan a happy man —though I fancy that the doctor's proposal, and his will made in her favour, has rather biased her on his side. But that's by the way. And now follows the exhumation, the inquest. Monk, frightened out of his wits, is off to hide, like an old woman hiding under a bed. Winter, sent to bring him, goes to Miss O'Connor, who doesn't know where Monk is, then sets off for The Old House with 'a little parcel'—perhaps the very revolver which Miss Heygate missed from Clonnach the next day. Hester Hayes' letters suggest that Winter was more or less after her—married man—shameful thing; so was Monk; perhaps, then, there was jealousy. Monk may have known enough to be able to ruin Winter, in which case he'd resist arrest by Winter: there are signs of a struggle in that solar-room, a bullet in the floor. But Monk was not shot—not in the head or breast, anyway—may have got tumbled over the broken balcony-coping.

"Then Winter fled. Where to—who knows? I have waited for his evidence before proceeding to take certain steps here, but won't now, for his arrest mayn't be yet awhile: has bought a compass at St. Anne's—steering his feet for Glasgow, I guess. To imagine that he is still about here, and had anything to do with the digging-up of the black box, seems fantastic to one who knows the police organization. The box was dug up because, if found, the gloves in it would provide proof positive as to who had tried to get down to the body. And its importance is known to its burier, who actually fired three bullets at Miss Heygate, thinking that she was I, perhaps. Two of those bullets I have: they fit a revolver which I have this day come upon at Dr. White-Deighton's house. On the night of the digging-up, as I gave chase, I saw a beard like Dr. White-Deighton's, and he was found with a sheet, all wet, on the lake's shore. This day he has admitted to me that he knows in what mysterious spot that black box is; aye, he said that; he knows. He might 'tell Miss Heygate', he said; but, of course, he has not: wouldn't see her, Miss Heygate tells me... Well, there you have the outlines of my case."

Silence... Her palms pressing backward her cheeks, Agnes sat bent, gazing as in dismay at the flame's nature, which was poplar in shape, but holly by caprice, and aspen by habit; while Gilfillan rid his lips of three perfunctory smoke-puffs, venting them to heaven with a vehemence which meant go to hell; and ever the spirit of the rain's dripping was present with them, a wet chemistry of distilleries and precipitates filtering, dripping still...

"You are It, Massingham," Gilfillan said: "go ahead on those lines, and you'll come out fine. But are you on the level in saying that those letters of Hester to her cousin show intimacy with White-Deighton? See here, to me that's all wet as evidence. Here's a servant-girl love-sick, setting her cap at a gentleman: and all she brags of is that he held her cut hand a minute. If ever there had been more to tell, you bet the details would have poured from her. So her child's father was never the gentleman, who 'no doubt will drop me now like a hot iron'—when he gets to know. Now, supposing that Monk was the father—"

And Gilfillan: "Wait, I am not through yet... She writes slightingly of 'old Monk with his spectacles': but Monk had this wisdom, that he was there, under the same roof: to succeed in love 'soyez-la, be there. Think how intimate, Monk's telling her before O'Connor's death what was in O'Connor's will. During the forenoon of that screwing-down day housemaid Nellie runs up for something to her room, which she shared with Hester, and sees on the dressing-table an envelope with 'To Monk' on it in pencil—"

"'For', was it? Well, same thing—'to' or 'for.' Envelope not fastened, a postcard in it; and Nellie was going to read when Hester, dressed to go out, ran in, grabbed it, and ran out—went to Marchstow that day, engaged a cottage; went that evening out to The Old House to keep her last appointment: and you bet the appointment was made on that postcard. Monk was never seen speaking secretly with her in the house—shy old bird, shy, wary; but she'd visit his room in the dark in slippers—"

"Same here" Gilfillan answered; then, getting up to go the truth-seekers 233 to his overcoat, he came back with a match-box, saying "Examine this, and you'll know."

Massingham's and Agnes' heads bent together over it; and he went on: "I found that in Monk's room. See the hair-pins in it—no matches—the blood-spot on it. There is just such another blood-spot on one of Hester's slippers—you've noticed it—and, if you look, you'll see just a touch of blood on that Discobolus in the cross-corridor. She had meant to strike a match between her room and his, but in the dark picked up the match-box in which she kept hair-pins, and so hit her nose against the statue. And morning came upon her unawares, for she left Monk in a flurry—forgot about the little old hair-pins; and there the match-box remained. As to the ergot of rye and savin, I didn't know about that till now, but I kind of knew: I guessed that Monk would go to our doctor and say 'See here, I'm done for; these things aren't done in high-class households, and, if the baronet gets to know, O, gargon! Monk's an outcast; but you see me through, and you ain't going to be sorry: I'll work it so you get Miss O'Connor quite a lot quicker than you think, for baronets are mortal.' We know how the average doctor would react to this: he'd say 'That stuff won't go here, you Devlin devil'; but our doctor's different. Get me: I don't imply that the gentleman's a Borgia; but he's not much on human laws: says if you care quite a lot about your neighbour Dick, that's 'villager stuff.' We know that O'Connor shrank from his medicines—not fearing actual poison, I reckon, or he'd never have had our doctor fooling around his bedside; but he may have had experience of medicines that weren't quite right: so, guessing that the man might wish him out of the way, and knowing the man's mentality, he'd feel uneasy. The doctor, then, being that philosophic kind of guy, he and Monk would readily get chummy, and Hester would get her ergotine. This explains her three—'perhaps twenty'—visits to the doctor-shop: visits of a patient; no indication anywhere that the doctor was the father. Get me?"

Massingham's nose-wrinkles expressed offence at his smoke's odour. After a second he said "I hear you: go on."

And Gilfillan: "But the ergotine failed. So picture Monk's fix now. See here, a house-steward just mustn't do that—not in the house. And such a house-steward—trusted. He'd wish the master sky-high in heaven before his sin finds him out. Besides, he wants jack urgently, now that the ergot hasn't worked: for Hester has got to be fed, after being banished far. Then, the master is so sick—mercy to kill him; and he can safely be killed: for now our doctor is in Monk's power, not only because the doctor has given the ergot of rye, but because the master has expressed dislike of the doctor's medicine; and, since any suspicion that may arise will fall upon the doctor, the doctor will be keeping all dark, if he finds out what's been done. So Monk puts out his hand. Knows that strychnine is a poison: pours from a bottle marked 'strychnine'; but, as happens during the years of a laboratory's history, another drug has got into the 'strychnine' bottle: he really pours mercurochrome. Pours it—not into the medicine!—not such a boob, since he knew that the master didn't intend to take any medicine: pours it into the claret that stood in a purple claret-glass on the night-table for the baronet to sip: the mercurochrome's colour would be unnoticeable there. Nurse Joyce saw the claret there at the death, and some had been drunk, for—"

"But," Massingham broke in, "it was the medicine he pointed at, not at the glass! All the evidence says 'the medicine.'"

"Monk said, Miss Joyce, too"—from Gilfillan: "but she rushed in in a dim light—couldn't judge—the glass just near the bottle. He pointed at the glass—"

"Man alive! then, Monk would have upset the glass, not the bottle"—from Massingham.

But Gilfillan: "No, he'd upset the bottle: for, since no poison was in the bottle that he knew of, that fact would be a proof of the doctor's innocence, if the medicine was left there; and the doctor would not then be forced to be an accomplice."

"Well, just possibly"—from Gilfillan. "But the proof that the mercurochrome was in the claret is that when the medicine was tossed out of window upon that urn, no trace of mercury was found on the rim that Miss Heygate broke off. Strychnine was found. The doctor, indeed, has seen fit to deny that any strychnine was in his medicine; but strychnine was—probably no more than doctors usually prescribe; and, since no trace of strychnine was in the body, O'Connor drank none of the medicine; he drank mercurochrome: therefore the mercurochrome was in the claret; that's why the claret vanished pretty quick as well as the medicine: and this clears the doctor; Monk poisoned. But O'Connor's asleep there on the bed; even when he wakes he mayn't drink any claret immediately; and the stuff standing there is a peril: so, as Monk has to go out presently to The Ponds to meet Hester, and tell her to quit quick now that Miss O'Connor is due home, the idea leaps to his head to open the floodgates so he may startle the sleeper and get him having a drink of claret. But right now O'Loughlin looks in—'Come! Banshee hopping around'—and vanishes. That first Banshee, you say, Massingham, was the doctor yodling; and I say someone yodling, yes, sure; but somehow I can't picture our little old doctor yodling like an alpenknecht: I can picture Hester. She got some glimpse in the dark of O'Loughlin shadowing her, imagined that O'Loughlin was Monk, and yodled to O'Loughlin 'Here I be.' And Monk, guessing that the Banshee was she yodling, would think that O'Loughlin, too, would be guessing afterwards, and blabbing: so out he dashes to The Ponds by that short-cut through the home-covert; and, before opening the floodgates, tells Hester to get home roundabout so O'Loughlin won't see her, and to yodel some more near home, so others may hear the Banshee, and not suspect that the first Banshee was she out at The Old House. Anyway, the second Banshee wasn't what you said, Massingham—the last of the flood-water guggling through the 'area'-grating: for the 'area' was still full of water then, seeing that it was after the second Banshee that the tree-trunks floated down... But the flood fails: Monk, having run home, finds the sleeper still asleep; stands watching him when Mary Skerrett hurries up to tell that Martha Parnell's bed is in water; now's heard the second Banshee; then they run down; move Martha; tree-trunks crash; and, as the womenfolk stand making remarks round Martha in the hall, two of them catch sight of a shadow which dashes down the stair, and vanishes. You think that that shadow was the baronet's; but I can't picture him running out to ask what the crash was about, and then, after reaching the stair-head, turning tail without a word to the crowd just below. No, I say he jumped out of bed, and opened a door to look out, upon which the elkhound Scout, thinking he was going out, dashed out, forerunning, to the stair-head, cast a shadow, and dashed back, seeing the door being re-shut, the baronet now staggering back to bed, and having a drink; then, conscious of poison, he calls out, points at the claret-glass, and is gone... Soon after which arrives the doctor, guessing what's been done, what he had half-thought might be done ever since Monk's ergotine deal with him; then he sees the body, understands; and though he ain't, on the lot, too sorry about it, he's quite too agitated to keep the appointment with Miss O'Connor at Leigh; besides, there's no need now—goes home to sit and think of things. Next day Monk goes to him, confesses everything —knows our doctor must be mum and confederate; in the evening doctor comes secretly to see how the body's going—tells Monk 'Cover the face, don't let body be shaken': how I know he said this is going to appear. About eight o'clock the coffin arrives—special coffin ordered by Monk, who wanted everything 'to be strictly Irish', bottom screwed-on, not nailed-in. Coffins are like that in Ireland; but Monk's object was just to give an order, to get the undertaker understanding right now that he was the boss of this little old funeral, not Miss O'Connor, or anybody. And he wasn't acting in this under the doctor's instructions, I think: there was no 'wagging of tongues' yet to alarm the doctor. I guess you give our doctor credit for too much foresight, Massingham. Plum clever all that wow of yours about the cell and wires, the scalpel—too clever. People in action are miles less clever than detectives and conjurors with time to sit and hatch hat-tricks. Take Einstein: God's not so clever by half, because Einstein's got time to sit smoking pipes and concocting cosmoses; but God's busy quite a lot; and God chuckles at Einstein's cosmos with its 'curved space', just as an engineer at work chuckles at an amateur who comes along all hot with a scheme for getting perpetual motion. No, too elaborately clever: things happen free-and-easier. And your chemistry's cock-eyed, I reckon. Chemically, mercurochrome 220 is the disodium salt of dibromoxymercury fluorescin: and, whatever reagents were mixed with your vitriol, the presence of mercury, sodium, bromine and fluorine would still be spelling mercurochrome. No, that's all wet. What actually happened was that one of the trestles upon which the coffin was put was rickety—I've seen it—quite a lot wobbly: and Monk, I say, had been warned about the body shaking. So he looks around for something to fix it so it won't dance about in the coffin, comes upon some little Clark cells in the laboratory which are just right, wedges in one or two at the shoulders, sticks one between the skull and coffin-head, and one lengthways between the feet to fix the feet against the coffin-sides; but, as this one slips or drops every time, he fixes it by tying the ankles tight, with it between: which tying made the string-marks found at exhumation. None of the cells could be seen, hair and pyjamas hid them—"

Here Massingham, with his weighing eye-slits, objected "String would displace the trouser-bottoms between the feet, raise 'em: that'd be seen."

But Gilfillan flung upward three perfunctory puffs as loco-engines do, to carry the objection's weight, and start his answer: "Depends on how much; a quarter-inch, say, wouldn't attract attention; and the next evening the coffin's screwed-down... Monk has been keeping it company all day, but now in the evening he has to go out—to the appointment made on that postcard of Hester's that was within the envelope marked 'For Monk.' He's on the look-out, sees Hester tripping to the rendezvous, presently follows—"

Massingham struck his chair, with "Man alive! Any evidence that the man went out?"

And Gilfillan, heatedly, leaning keenly: "You bet not! he'd go too shy. Here was evidently his touchiest spot! for, though they two must have had lots of chances to exchange whispers indoors, Monk wasn't taking any—meetings outside, please! But we know that the screwing-down was before dinner, and that Monk dined alone, after dinner. Where was he meanwhile? Not brooding over the screwed-down coffin? So he said. In truth he was doing to death a fellow-creature. The provocation was intense, that's true: he had just stained his hands with a death so he might get her far away, and when she tells him she has taken a cottage that day, and ain't going to quit, that must have got him sore, et comment! So—"

Now Massingham swung his face fretfully as at pestering smells, with "Any evidence that the man at his dinner looked like a man come in from murdering a girl?"

Gilfillan laughed at the ceiling, swinging a leg on his chair-arm. "Ah, but negative evidence is no good here, kid! Wasn't our Monk an actor, so born? not much on foresight, but long on dissembling... But now clouds and darkness are gathering on his head: 'wagging of tongues' breaks out, et comment! He gets to picturing the coffin being reopened, or exhumed—with those cells inside, that string round the ankles. Luckily, he can get at them pretty quick: so, after drugging the nun—perhaps with those sulphate of morphia tabloids that are in the laboratory—he sets to work at midnight, makes the saw-cuts, takes out the two or three cells at the coffin-head. But he finds that the cell between the feet, and the string, are beyond his reach—saw-cuts made too near the head! So, getting a scalpel to cut the string, he gropes with it, holding its handle's tip with his finger-tips: awkward! and his fumblings make in the foot the wound found at exhumation. Moreover, as he gets the string cut, the scalpel, weakly gripped, escapes from his fingers. He has a hook of wire, say, to fish-out the string, and manages that much; but when he gropes for the cell and the scalpel, the hook of wire can't find, or won't bring, them. And Miss O'Connor is wakeful this night: when he hears someone stirring somewhere he hurriedly closes-up; and his outcry when exhumation was broadcast meant, not 'if I wasn't the fool to murder', but 'if I wasn't the fool to be scared for nothing, and leave the cell and scalpel in.' As to the 'slime' on the pyjama being due to his disturbing the body, no, Massingham—there Homer nods: the slime was on, not under, the jacket; and, as we know it didn't come from the mouth, nose, or ears, where did it come from? You bet it was some humor that oozed from the wound in the foot, got upon the string, and so soiled the jacket when the string was drawn out. But I say ditto to you as to the saw-cuts being camouflaged with varnish; ditto as to the doctor being with Monk in the attempt to get down to the body—couldn't help! was all mixed-up in the bowl of mush, had given a death-certificate, had vowed—to Miss Heygate, for one—that O'Connor was not poisoned. I have concluded, too, like you, that it was his gloves—and boots—he buried in the black box: went home barefoot. And, as to how Monk died, I guess you've about hit it. Without doubt Hester had fooled around with Winter, too: Winter once shaved his moustache to avoid being dropped upon by Hester's father. And to arrest Monk Winter goes armed—with a Clonnach revolver. How did he get it? Steal it? Wouldn't have known where to look for it! Or did he borrow it from Miss O'Connor? There's something between Winter and Miss O'Connor, I reckon: I say Winter was bribed by her to keep dark something he knows of White-Deighton. Anyhow, Winter was armed at Monk's death, or he wouldn't have fled: it was he, not Monk, who had that revolver missing from Clonnach. And I say that's the revolver you've found today at our doctor's."

At this Massingham cast off his cigar-end offendedly, asking "How can you talk like that?"

"Yes, I reckon that's so... Now, Winter didn't clear at once on Monk's death: for that night Miss Heygate and I detected a light on the lake—who but Winter searching for Monk, uncertain whether he had actually shot Monk, say, and wanting to make certain? And he'd have cleared at once, if he had meant to clear right out. Those two thefts of food out of Clonnach—you bet it was Winter when he'd got through the parcel of provisions Monk took to The Old House. Winter's still slinking hereabouts within the thick of some timber where he wants that compass he bought at St. Anne's. And if Miss O'Connor knows where he is? and has told our doctor? In that case the doctor could say to Winter, when the place of burial of the black box was about to be discovered, 'dig me up this box quick', and Winter under his thumb would just have to. It wasn't the doctor who dug up—"

"Guessing, yes, you bet"—from Gilfillan, flinging a tap at Massingham's knee:—"but how are you going to get round it? Will you say our doctor, 'addicted to the fair sex', shot at Miss Heygate? Will you say that? He couldn't think it was you! She had told him she was going—"

"Could blacken it! and exhibit it to you—with the same motive he put the revolver where you would sure walk into it, and swear it was the doctor's! If the doctor was ordering him about, he'd naturally want the doctor to be suspected rather than himself. We know the doctor was hanging around at the digging-up, but not actually—"

"Oh, well, have it as you like"—Massingham let his head drop backward, while Gilfillan, rushing his fingers through his hair, remarked finishingly "Well, that's my panning out of this machine."

Then a little stillness, Agnes glancing to see Massingham rather haggard, like a man who has passed through an or deal of refutation and chafing; and she, aware that his faith was shaken, suddenly in a flush snatched up Gilfillan's hand to kiss it quick, saying with a Yankee song of voice "I've got to hand it to you, kid! you did it pretty good."

But Gilfillan took this enthusiasm with some coldness, made colder when she leant to whisper at him "But still too clever! things happen free-and-easier"—quoting to him what he had said to Massingham.

Then she said "But about those two bits of board removed from the well near the estate-workshop on broadcasting night? And the scars of burning on O'Connor's left leg? You haven't referred..."

She looked reproach. "How can I? It would take us till morning, if my tongue once got going! Tomorrow perhaps—"

"But you didn't say 'couldn't.' This isn't my own house... Stay, I'll write out something for you to study ..." She tripped to a "what-not" to get paper, then to scribble on it in pencil on the table, while the men stood over, Massingham now sullen, dumb...

Then "Here are my views" she said, handing the scrip to Massingham, who read it through a glass, grumbling it aloud with a growing disgust of nose:

This is the house that Bill built.
And this is the patron—O, conchite his brows!—
That admonished the priest "Be true to your vows!"
That proffered the sip
That solaced the lip
That published the faith
That failed—not its wraith
That ended the bee
That harboured the flea
That bit the wight
That rued the night
That drew down on the house
That Bill built.

"The case is there," Agnes answered, "get at the meaning of that, and that minute you'll say 'Yes, this is the face of truth.'"

And Gilfillan said "Once, Massingham, when Eve was asleep she snored, heard herself, thought it was the voice of the Lord, and afterwards remarked to Adam 'The word of the Lord came unto me in a dream.' So her daughters, friend."

"Well, well," went Massingham; and they left her stiffly, venturing out under umbrellas into dribble and dimness.

The next forenoon when they met in the Clonnach "private road" Massingham remarked "Rather strange behaviour last night."

On which Gilfillan, keen to coerce her to keep her word and 'turn out the tripe', replied "Let's go to her—right now. She said 'tomorrow'."

"With a 'perhaps'," Massingham remembered; but added "Well, come on"; and they set off.

But in the "private road" itself a Martha Price remarked at them in passing "So Miss Heygate be gone"; in the Adversane road one of three lads was saying "Aye, I did see her going"; and a newspaper-man threw at Gilfillan "Miss Heygate's away westward, I see": so they were prepared for Lizzie Davis' statement at Agnes' door: "Ain't she gone by the ten-three train? Everybody's wondering where to, they be such a gossiping newshunting lot—it's none of their business. And her left a letter for Mr. Gilfillan, and one for you, Sir."

Massingham's letter said that she had had to run away, but hoped, on coming back, to throw some fresh light on the case... Gilfillan's admonished him to watch if Massingham showed any sign of backsliding, and to wire to her home in Oxfordshire...

"Hm," went Gilfillan; and Massingham remarked "This is hardly very... Must have meant last night to do this, but didn't say."

And Gilfillan: "Father forgive them, they are funny made. When I was a nipper I thought they were all solid woman under their gown, and stood on one egg-shaped leg. Then I got to be a detective, and discovered..."

"This seems to mean that she shares my view of the case, but fights shy of saying... Afraid of a suicide, if there's an arrest. But, then—"

"Wait, hang fire, till she's back," Gilfillan admonished: "then we shall have her cornered."

Chapter XXV
GUNFIRE

BUT the next day he wired to her home "Filially obedient, I say Massingham hardening heart. Come quick to me."

And on the fifth evening (Sunday) after her vanishing one Jack Williams, a cowman, coming from the station on a bicycle, sowed, as he plied his legs, the tidings "Her's back": so that before ever she reached Adversane The Three Villages knew; and she entered it in a flush of jocundity on the floodtide of a troop of yokels and newspaper-men pressing after her steps, someone now carrying her attache-case, Alan Walpole striding by her side, while Gilfillan came racing on a bicycle from Elberleigh way, and some time later Massingham on a motor-bicycle.

Only these two, when the troop reached her cottage, were granted entry, Alan Walpole, too, with the rest, being told "be good and go home"; and within the cottage a consciousness of crisis impending was present like a spirit amid the three.

Gilfillan said "So you've been to Ireland?" And she, bonnet still on, laughed gaily: "Yes, as gossiping a newshunting lot as they are here!"

"Hungry"—from her, as Lizzie Davis, bearing tea-things, entered—"but... No, must go; you have tea; perhaps I'll soon be back."

Her fingers rejected from her forehead a wisp of hair with a feminine gesture, as she said "Well, you two expect something from me, and, I tell you, I know nothing, nothing, till I can show you what's in black box. Dr. White-Deighton has admitted that he knows where box is: I am going to ask him."

"We'll wait"—as out she dashed, leaving Massingham with a frown and Gilfillan with a whistling which wished to be nonchalant; and Massingham asked "Aren't I being played with? Will she say her say when she's back?"

Spryly, meanwhile, Agnes' legs were plying, going at a run past Clonnach wall, and on to the doctor's lane, she saying in herself "He'll have to tell"; but she had hardly sped ten steps down the lane when she faltered, stopped, went pale, overcome with a faintness of dismay at some message of danger which said to her "you will never get to this lane's end"; and her eyes were riveted in affrighted interest upon one spot nigh under the triple-hedge some way down the lane, seeming, as she said later, to see there a vision of herself stretched dead, face down, with a red thread wending down her left temple.

She came back to herself with the start of one awaked from sleep, and breathing "Oh, no," was suddenly fleeing with the feet of a thief.

On reentering her cottage, she dropped into a chair, panting, passed her palm across her eyes, and was silent.

"Felt a sense of danger—something awaiting me in the lane—I knew—couldn't go on. You two come with me."

But it had before entered Massingham's head that he was being bammed, manoeuvred, put-off, with a motive; and, intolerant now, he answered with frank crossness "I'm afraid I have other things to see to this evening, Miss Heygate." Within a minute he was away.

"Cross!" went Gilfillan: "I reckon it's a warrant of arrest he 'has to see to'."

"Oh, what have I done to him?" came from Agnes in distress... "Mustn't be allowed to serve it!... Glinten, you come: come with me."

Trotting down his lane, she pointed out the spot where she had seemed to see herself dead; whereupon he, peering into the hedge, said "Say! there was someone cooling his heels in there not long ago.".. In another minute she was at the doctor's porch-door.

But not in! Mrs. Lucas, his housekeeper, herself came to say so.... "Ran out—not ten minutes ago—in his silk jacket! Said agitatedly, as he ran past me, 'Miss Heygate—she's in danger'."

"There was nobody when I went to a rap at the door; the note was in the letter-box, addressed in pencil, all rumpled—"

Agnes, struck pallid, swung from her, to run to supplicate Gilfillan with wrung fingers: "Got to be found—going to be shot!"

"But to find him?"—a face in pain upraised—"God help me this night! Oh, God, my God, make haste to help me!"

"No, don't—we will find," pressing after her steps that twinkled quick, with quarreling frocks, until they came to the lane's end, where they were stopped dead by the problem "right or left?"—night-shades now busy, spinning about them webs of dinginess.

Bright-eyed she stood now with twinkling lids, thinking quick of it, a wit spinning on tip-toe; and, suddenly crying out "That cigarette!", darted into running back down the lane.

Half-way down her flashlight flashed, and some moments afterwards she was dashing back up, calling in advance "To right!"

"Yes," she said: "he discovered that he had a cigarette, let it drop—I saw it in passing—lies on the right, so he meant to turn right, since he was hurrying."

But now again—before the lychgate—she faltered, stopped. "May have gone in here—or on to the rectory?"

"Oh, God, help," she supplicated, and suddenly was darting up the path—slabs with grass and stones between—that leads to the gate.

He followed less fast, saw her flashlight flash, then her call came, "Yes! here"; upon which he ran up to rejoin her; and, as they trotted on among tombstones, asked her "What, though, would he come here for?"

"Something," she panted, pallid, but flushed in patches: "looking for me he is, thinks I'm 'in danger'; and is here somehow: rain-water spilled out of rot-hollow in gate's top still dripping; snail which the gate crushed in opening not dead—lately done; and gate flung wide in a rush—it is always shut. But, oh my, what now? If we had a dog's scent—"

Now they parted, running, he west, she south-west; but, as he in the church was calling "anybody about?," he heard her calling, spurted out to her at the churchyard-steps, and she said "He was here—gone by boat—see mark of boat's rope still wet across second step... Two boats here the day before I went away, now one..."

"Can't see him," Gilfillan breathed, peering over the water: "may have gone to The Old House; would have gone by road, if he was going to The New."

"Anyway, I have him now"—from her: "some water in boats—sure to have wet his soles more or less. You run, Glinten—find Massingham quick—tell him come, say 'man surely shot, or going to be'—your byke at my place—run."

As she said "run," she was running down the steps, undid the other boat's rope from a ring, and was in, rowing urgently eastward beneath the churchyard-wall for the landing-stage...

But there no wet prints of feet, such as she expected to see, appeared. Now she had "lost scent," as foxhounds do, and consumed much time, crouched down, all eyes, impatiently patient, scrutinizing the longish stretch of the steps: for she was not certain whether the boat removed from the churchyard-steps was not one of those three at present lying at the landing-stage. There were five boats in all; two were missing: and now to find those two she started off afresh, after failing to find any footprints, rowing southwestward in a stress of haste, to the west of The Old House, round to its south face, to its east a little, then back westward, to coast now along the lake's south shore, the church-bells now bursting into chiming for night-service, her outlook each minute searching the mists of the surface: for now a moon had moved up, the three-quarters visage, with a chin, of some weak and troubled stripling, a puff of cloudlet near his mouth, he smoking something that was sickening his stomach; and when she had become convinced that no boat was abroad on the water, she rowed back to The Old House, to paddle now up that alley-channel in its west face which she had named "Traitor's Gate": and through the glooms in there her eyes soon divined two boats lying together beside the four half-round steps that are at the alley's end.

There she leapt out; stood on the steps; and before her stood a portal open: but her foot failed to adventure in, something recking in her, cowering from some mood of doom that brooded there about her: for it was dismal there within that den of desolation, and its dumbness of the dead had some under-mutter of dread and awe that daunted the heart's strength. She said to herself that Massingham might now be coming, or come: it would be better to wait...

Only her mouth she pushed in standoffishly, to lift a little a voice that faltered and call "Dr. White-Deighton!"—her voice having the effectiveness of shrapnel to splash with echoings that hollowness, as when rocks crash with ripplings into stagnant ponds, so that the garrulous contrast of it shocked her; and, even as she uttered it, that keenness of her ears seemed to hear a something—like some old door's creaking—-somewhere within the abyss of the building's blackness: on which instantly she skedaddled, skipped into her boat, and was away as if chased by ghosts—bound now again for the landing-stage; and thence, as no sign of Massingham was in sight, she ran round to the castle-front, muttering now with fixed lips "I am going in... go by the front..."

But before she reached the causeway a noise of feet was approaching, and she saw Massingham walking fast, followed by a mob: for Gilfillan, in seeking him, had instigated three or four to give him, if they met him, the news of some doom menacing somebody about The Old House: so a rumour of it had run panting; the seekers had multiplied; and, while Gilfillan was still seeking, Massingham had come —with company at his heels.

So Agnes tripped to meet him under the avenue-trees with "thank God!," and proceeded to give the history of it, mixed with pleadings, "Come," "Come quick."

But, as she spoke, his nose took on an expression of offence. He asked "Who is to shoot the man?"

He did not stir, his heart now hardened against her. "Stand back there! Stand back!" he cried to the crowd; and to her: "Some constables are coming; I am not going into that place defenceless. It may be a case, not of a man being shot, but of a man out to shoot—himself or others: there have already been shots fired—as you know."

But he: "No, don't you... I will come, if this lot will"; then, raising his voice: "Who's for coming with me into The Old House?"

"Won't come: too knowing," he remarked. And she, white as a sheet: "I am going."

Now her voice rose to a cry "Who'll come with me?" Whereupon Tom Price stepped forward with "I will." And Gwylln Jones with "I'm game." Then a little stillness.

"Come on, boys, all of us!" Harry Rapley, one of three pressmen, called out. But no response... "It's too dismal!" someone called. And another: "Never get out again!" And another: "Stop 'em at it, Sir!"

And Massingham: "That's no good, just two... Back, you two, back... Now, don't you, Miss Heygate, you take my—" just as Agnes, dodging past him, was gone with the pelting steps of some desperate wretch rushing upon precipices.

They all trotted a little after, watching her crossing of the causeway without pause, saw her flashlight flash under the archway, as she vanished: and that was the last they saw of her.

Dumb they stood some minutes with smitten bosoms— astare at the building—there where the causeway begins to cross the water; until now Gilfillan, alighting from his bicycle, arrived with the tidings, "Constables close behind me." Then at once: "But Miss Heygate?"

But now a sound out of the castle's darkness startled all their hearts—a revolver-shot; and before anyone could rouse himself from the palsy of awe which that outbreak brought upon all, another shot followed.

Then two dogs there barked; whereat "Come on, you, all!" Massingham called, darting forward: and in a minute all, with the dogs, were swallowed within the walls.

But, since there was moonlight, they had come without lanterns; only Massingham and a pressman had low-power lights: so they went huddled like sheep, a flock of white cheeks, wild eyes, following after Massingham, each heart quailing at the expectation of being shot by ghosts out of the glooms, or by gnomes, at any moment; and, as they picked their way up the precarious steps of a stairway, three more pistol-shots, from above, ringing out quick as one-two-three, reached to their ears from some remote region of the building—from the back (west) regions, it seemed—in the midst of the pistol-reports pealing a screaming of someone in extremis, distant, yet distinct: so that they all paused, daunted, a little, all faces taking-on an expression of pain mixed with ecstasy of terror. But now came trotting up three county-constables, and immediately afterwards Alan Walpole with a face of scare: so, as there was now more light—bullseyes, lantern-light—the troop separated more or less on the upper floor, some running to look into one nook, some into another, until a constable called out "Blood here, Sir!," and all flocked to peer.

And now a perfect dumbness, while the taciturnity of those murks that encompassed them seemed to await their verdict; until Gilfillan, peering on his knees, gave it: "Her blood; she was in flight; fell—just there..."

But Gilfillan, springing up: "Yes, come! A blood-drop is smeared on that second step—by a skirt sweeping down to the third; and the drops lie nearer together on the upper steps: she leapt the last three—fleeing; fell yonder"—three yards beyond the steps—"where the drops stop. Come!"

"Come on, all!" Massingham called, and all trotted onward toward the back parts, poking meanwhile their lamps' beams into whatever portals stood open, some being locked, into coign, closet, guesten-hall, vaults with groins, with columns—octagons, trapeziums—going over groaning boards and broken stone, seeing rats that feared not dog neither regarded man, till now, the dogs pioneering, inviting, they got to a door, lying wide, at the back, where Massingham, crying "Here he is!," ran in.

It was a capella ardente, its altar still there to the right: and on the floor, close to the door, his hair blood-bedabbled, Dr. White-Deighton lay blue-white on his back, with the expression of a man entranced, a rat on the altar-step weighing him with speculation, and beside his right hand a revolver—no bullets now in it—a fellow of the one found by Massingham over his door.

But Massingham, bent over him, said "Not dead—failed in the attempt"; and to the constables "Look alive—ambulance; take Gilfillan's byke, 'phone, call-up Dr. Scott... Give him air there—stand back!"

Meantime, seeking into the prostrate pockets, he drew out a few shillings, handkerchief, pocket-lamp; also a leaf, torn roughly from some pocket-book, on which were three crosses in pencil, and, underneath, the letter "A."

But Gilfillan sprang upright, with "God's sake—I don't know—don't stop here—Miss Heygate!"

Whereupon they two, with others, left the doctor there with his collar unloosed, to troop now up the steps of that northwest tower in which Lord William Billingham had assassinated his challenger; and there on that old stair of stone, that curves to follow the wall's curve, Massingham's lamp sighted the hook of a "hook-and-eye," which he snatched up to peer at, and to breathe to Gilfillan "But look at this! Uniform-hook—looks like Winter about!"

Some steps higher his beam detected a mite of something, which, on inspection, was seen to be cheese!

And "Strange!" he muttered: "I myself locked the doors that are locked, but don't remember locking this one... don't think there was any key."

"Oh, let's not stop to think," Gilfillan urged, turning back; Alan Walpole called "Back!"; and they went down again, Massingham now packing off two to The New House to get the keys.

And the ransacking of the castle, to its outbuildings, went on, above, below: but no trace of Agnes, except the blood on those corridor-steps, and two bullets, three cartridge-cases; no boat now at those half-round water-steps in "Traitor's Gate"; nothing in all the castle's vastness but darkness, a dumbness that mumbled echoings, and a remembrance of the outbreak of an event, now dead, that haunted all its halls. Dr. Scott arrived from Elberleigh, and that white face of White-Deighton, its eyes now opening, was borne away; the keys arrived, but neither revealed anything in the rooms that they opened, nor could open that locked door in the northwest tower; and Massingham had no means to force the door immediately. So, after an hour and a half within the castle, the seekers issued out at a loss, to meet near the causeway the rector, his Doris and Lily, Miss O'Connor, Mrs. Sayce, a herd of servants who had been at the church-service, with some others who had heard rumours even in the church during the service; and Mrs. Sayce made a step to meet Massingham with a face of distress that entreated, to ask "Not found her?"

Massingham had a hanging head. "Not in there, Madam," he answered: "may be in the water."

"Or on it," Foy suggested, "since two of the boats aren't at the landing-steps... Well, Alan, in despair?"

He, frowning at the ground, wrapped in his grief, answered nothing, appeared to hear nothing. But he mechanically followed the others toward the landing-steps, where he got into a boat with Foy and Mrs. Sayce, while Massingham, Gilfillan, the rector, got into another, the constables into the last: and they started out to seek, a wind that had arisen now sweeping streams of cloud eastward, the moon moving west through their streaming midsea, seeming the head of some wight swimming backwards on his back away, swept in the delight of some wild sea's flight, sweeping away and away with a steadfast speeding from seas of dreaminess on to seas of dream; and, as she emerged from the drench of a surge, fetching-up sea-shell pigments such as mingle with that sea, her glimpses showed-up a boat which lay just within the embrasure of "Traitor's Gate"; empty she lay; nor were they able to find any sign in her as to why she had been abandoned there.

Then, twenty minutes afterwards, the other boat, empty, abandoned, was found far off—four yards from the lake's south shore, opposite a waste of bracken which mounted to a farmer's orchard atop: and the three boats clustered about her...

Her rudder was now swinging askew, not fixed to her by both pintles, only by the upper; and Massingham demanded "Now, what would that mean?"

Chapter XXVI
THE VANISHED HAND

THEN appeared the depth of the impression which she had made, not upon The Three Villages merely, but upon St. Arven's, St. Anne's, on to The Forest of Dene, that had never seen her, but knew the mood of her by rumour, as we know Beatrice, Teresa. At Marchstow, at Leigh, a morning phenomenon of queues was witnessed within stations and paper-shops, the papers finding it penny-wise to invent tidings of her under heavy-ordnance of headlines that volleyed: for the mob's bereavement and feeling of having been robbed was more agitated than mere bereavement is, being further agitated, even to ferment and turmoil, by uncertainty as to whether she was actually dead, or had merely whirled her skirts into invisibility for some reason of mystery, the people splitting into two parties of opinion like Radical and Tory—this being owing to Glenelg Grant, porter at Adversane station, who declared that he had seen her on the Sunday evening—seen her leap into the 7.45 up-train...!

But, then, this was hardly good evidence, Grant was known to be such a drunkard.

"Drunk, was he?" Massingham asked the reporter and two countrymen who ran with it to his tavern on the Monday morning; but they answered "Says he wasn't": and he set out to investigate—soon, though, to get a Tory view that the root of the porter's story was a desire for notoriety, combined with that rheum of cider in the sight of his eyes: she would not have had time, he opined, to be at the station at 7.45; and, if alive, why hide herself?

But Grant was dogged and angry in the "Grafton Arms" bar-parlour each night, and, like Paul, preached his vision abroad, so that many believed, or half-believed, Gilfillan himself professing himself of that Radical party; so, too, Alan Walpole; so, too, Dr. White-Deighton, who within two days was on his feet, having merely fainted from a scalp-wound. Looking frail, lily-pale, a streak of bandage appearing beneath his hat behind, he was out of doors by the Wednesday forenoon, standing beside the landing-stage, one of the crowd that steadily surrounded The Old House, spreading to The Fishponds, thronging the beaches both of the fortress and of the shore, thronging the causeway, the outbuildings' windows, watching with long-drawn patience the dredging of the water for her whose steps had strayed.

Not a few held newspapers, and there was a displaying of papers among them, with discussions, affrays of tongues—the rumour this Wednesday being that someone "resembling" her had been noted at Folkestone; and in every mouth was the name and the fame of Glenelg Grant.

The name, too, of Winter, whom England was now grimly on the look-out to grip...

And many an eye was dwelling on Dr. White-Deighton with meditation, with speculation, he having declared that his wound was not due to his own hand, he "did not know" to whose hand: doubtful stuff; while many an eye was following Massingham with interest, as he stepped to and fro, issuing some instruction, conversing with Sir Ernest Ritchie, the Chief Constable, with Chief-Inspector Teeger, down from "The Yard," or, about midday, with Gilfillan near the landing-steps, who shouldered through the throng to stop and ask him if he had learned anything further as to a revolver which Gilfillan had missed from The New House on the Monday; but he answered no: "No time," he said, "to think of that now—though I've questioned everybody in the place, except Mrs. Sayce, Miss O'Connor, and her maid, who are away. Second revolver that has vanished like that. Anyway, we've got the first"—for that first, which had vanished on the day of Winter's vanishing, had been found on the Monday, when that locked door in the northwest tower had been forced; and, with the revolver, a towel, sacking, a pillow, six loaves, a junk of cheese...!

Then Massingham stepped smartly on, while Gilfillan went winning his way back to his place at the landing-steps; but, stopped by some words that he heard said before him, he stood scowling, offended: for he saw the doctor pat Alan Walpole's arm, and laugh, and say "Be of good cheer! She is alive, she will write to me—you will see."

On which Alan flushed up a little, his brow twitching toward frowning; and he answered "Or to—me, I rather fancy, Doctor."

And now Gilfillan stepped forward to say with some heat "See here, to me, I think, gentlemen, after all, if that lady writes to anybody."

At which intrusion both the others looked straight over the lake in an embarrassment, and made no answer. But the doctor laughed a little to himself...!

For he was hardly at present his everyday self: that high calm of mind had been undermined, and now tottered like tower-tops in the hour of downfall, while in the mildness of those eyes was arising something of wildness and disarray, as of violets in distress under stress of tempest. When he presently left the waterside to walk away under the east graveyard wall, where the ground is rugged, his steps went staggery, straying, he going eagerly in a species of haste, hat in hand, revealing his bandage, throwing up his brow to breezes that distracted his beard, fingering meantime that leaf that had mysteriously got into his pocket, scribbled with three crosses and with an A. For crosses are for kisses? "Agnes" begins with A?—a fact that had infected his vat and set-up effervescence. Sometimes he chuckled, as he strode, muttering "She and I, she and I, by Heaven, she and I"; and he strode on beyond his house-lane without knowing.

Afresh after luncheon he joined the throng round the water, and was there near the landing-steps at six when a glad-eyed lad ran to present him a telegram with "Alive, Doctor!," and was away again, hunting for someone, throwing right and left, like a sower, the tidings "Alive! Alive!," as he pressed his way forward, spreading a noising as when a runaway horse furrows some throng, or a gunboat tosses froths from the brunt of her progress; nor had the doctor's quivering fingers got his telegram rent open, and read it, blessed it, when Alan Walpole came pressing through the babel, his eyes on fire, to exhibit a telegram... "I thought you might like, Doctor... has sent me this... Alive..."

"Ah?... yes, yes, I know... thank God"—reading Alan's telegram: the same words as his:

"FOLKESTONE... AM ALL HERE. IF GOD PROTECTS WILL BE BACK TO YOU 4.45 SATURDAY. AGNES."

As this was being uttered, Gilfillan, his hat chucked backward from a flushed largeness of brow, was with them, saying "Alive, gentlemen—as I said. You may care to see this"—exhibiting a telegram.

And they two read together... A little longer, this one: "Folkestone... Am all here. If God protects will be back to you 4.45 Saturday. Beg Massingham bear and wait. Am coming quick. Agnes."

At this time Alan's wire was in his pocket, but, the doctor's being still in his fingers, Gilfillan's quick eye sighted it; and he enquired "You got one, then?"

The doctor bowed, while Alan stared at him, not without some dismay of face; and Gilfillan, crestfallen, cross, remarked with ill-will "I reckon my news is quite a lot stale; but—Well, we'll see...": grumbling this, he swung away to go with the crowd which, like grease heated, was now streaming away from round The Old House, with still, here or there, a cheer shouting.

Chapter XXVII
OUTCOME

THAT night Gilfillan was sipping wine with Massingham in Massingham's tavern at Elberleigh, they two going over the whole case again; and point after point of his former argument at Agnes' house Gilfillan abandoned in those hours—avowing now that, not Monk, but the doctor, was doubtless the lover of Hester Hayes and the poisoner of O'Connor, that not Winter had shot at Agnes in the graveyard, at Agnes and the doctor in The Old House, but the doctor had shot, and then attempted suicide—to which views he veered round with some show, some feeling even, of reluctance, little knowing, may-be, to what extent complexes of animosity, jealousy, in the Subconscious can influence the decisions of the Conscious...

But he suggested that that would be judicious to "bear and wait" until after Saturday when Agnes would be back; and Massingham, comforted to self-satisfaction by the mental company of his companion, whose mentation he respected, and by claret, answered "We'll see how we go."

But he waited—with impatience—three days; and, with Gilfillan, was in the forefront of the crowd of countrymen and reporters' note-books that filled the station at 4.45 on the Saturday.

As the train came down the rails, one of the reporters let out the exclamation "There she is!," seeing a lady-passenger lean out of window: whereat a pressure, a peering, a squeezing, keenness of interest...

The train drew up; and when it rolled away only two had left it: Miss O'Connor and her maid.

Now the crowd stood downcast, as when a Christmas-box, ripped open, is found to be all sawdust. Dr. White-Deighton leapt down to walk away along the metals in a wild way; and Massingham pshawed, remarking to Gilfillan "Pooh, no more: Miss Heygate never does mean business. If she had come—"

He was stopped by Foy, who, on spotting his bigness in the throng, had stepped a little out of her way to bend and whisper at him "Want to see you: come tomorrow morning"; then stepped on through a lane of gazers toward her motor-car, accompanied by her maid, by Alan Walpole, by the rector, and by Glenelg Grant staggering at the drag of her bags.

None of the throng she recognized with any nod of greeting, looking rather solitary, severe, less freshly washed in rosiness, weary perhaps; and in the car asked "What is all the crowd about?"

"Why, to greet Agnes Heygate!" the rector said: "it is all in the papers—You didn't know?"

She was shown it: "If God protects, I shall be back..."; and she remarked "Apparently God has not protected."

Which was the general apprehension: for the hypothesis, "if God protects," was at present well known to everyone; and this doubtfulness wrought in everyone a dread that disaster had after all caught the lost darling of the hour. Throughout Sunday fears deepened; and though one newspaper had in it a rumour that she had passed over to France, this did not prevent some from going pilgrimage again to the station in the afternoon, to see if she came a day late; a few even went on the Monday, too.

But not Massingham any more. On the Sunday morning he called, as enjoined, upon Foy O'Connor, to find himself afresh raided with the temptation to refrain from arresting Dr. White-Deighton: money, much more than had been before shoved before him, was now for him; and once more Massingham sighed at it, dying of sighings; but once more issued out as silver refined from fire, his mind only the more righteously determined from the furnace of his trial and the verve of his triumph.

Eleven o'clock the next (Monday) morning saw him at Marchstow for a magistrate's warrant.

Wary to work, though, was the word: he had no intention to have a suicide on his hands.

The thing was to spring upon the prisoner in the open, pin his wrists, cop him before he could think or wink: and soon after (Monday) noon two officers in plain clothes, whose faces the doctor was supposed not to know, were on the job, watchful...

Near five Massingham was in the "private road," stepping toward Adversane street, when Abel Green, one of the bell-ringers, grinding speed into his bicycle with wheeling feet, tossed at him "'come!," and was gone.

Five seconds afterwards he could see Gilfillan go, grinding speed, wheeling, leaning, past the road-end; then a trickle of feet, treking quick, in that direction; and now he, too, was running...

He had said to himself "If she's come, he'll run out to meet her": so, at the road-end, when Harry Grover panted at him "Aye, they have it to say er's come," he grabbed the lad's arm, and, chucking a shilling, whispered quick "You run up to the doctor's, let 'em know she's come, don't say anybody sent you"; and when the lad was up toward Clonnach he himself trotted back up, past Clonnach-gate, to beckon his two in plain clothes, and give them the tip to expect now, and lurk, then pounce out, seize, "work it sweet."..

Meantime, Agnes was on the station-road, coming with her retinue, which ever grew, she stepping still her energetic step, but palish, pensive, saying little, a strip of sticking-plaster stretching across her left cheek, the wet west-wind sweeping with sweet refreshment upon her face raised to it...

She was then there where the station-road bends from west to north to enter Adversane, the three willows at the corner being now just brushes of willow-whips, stripped bare, through which a wind swept away, giving vent to a godlike voice, the echo's gossip of some cosmic gong; and muddled over the road the Summer's multitude lay soaked—the stricken field of Armageddon, Mongol dead, Moroccoman dead, Redman, Greek, Negro. "Everything wet," she said of it, "everything washed in freshness"—that wet sou'-wester splitting her in front on the station-road, splitting her behind, driving her reluctant, on the Adversane-road, where, though the dusk was now brooding, she could still see a smoke which was pitching thin out of her chimney's mouth, stooping to scoot headlong like souls of rats trooping in innumerable helterskelter from the taste of hell-coals below, scattering in their scampering to evaporate and dash into vanishing; and yonder aloft a flock of rooks tossed crooked, like volleys of leaves tossed screaming for rollick down the streams of a breeze; and heavy heavens, momentous as with the naval affairs of fleets steaming east in sombre mood toward thunder of warfare in the North Sea, a smudge of moonshine moving west among them, as when a scout comes-in, announcing with semaphore dumbshow the enemy's muster; and now, at that turn of the road, she heard the church-bells burst into roundelay to publish her coming: for, at that word "she's come," Alan Walpole had rushed in a flush, and had sent, to summon the ringers, and, one being absent, was himself ringing; but, even as she started gladly at this gabbling of welcome, she started again in dismay, seeing the doctor coming hatless between two officers...

For he, having run out at the rumour of her coming, had been dropped upon in the "private road," his pockets rifled; and was now en route for the lock-up at Woodston.

Horror at that thing, a moan, rose from the throng; and she, too, understanding, let slip a cry "Always too late!," darting forward; while Massingham, walking behind his party, smiled with some spite at sight of her.

She was quickly with them—first murmured some word to the prisoner, dipping a curtsey in a hurry at him, then had Massingham's arm, drawing him off to talk soft.

This lasted some minutes. Gilfillan could hear from her "Yes, you come with me"; then "Yes, I promise"; then Massingham: "If you are so perfectly certain..."; and presently again Massingham: "Provided that the man undertakes..."; whereupon she tripped from him to the prisoner to plead: "Dr. White-Deighton, you will give your parole, won't you? to take no step to evade custody tonight."

And presently all were walking on—beyond her cottage, she split behind, up the "private road," she split in front, pressing resolutely on ahead of all her following, as a comet draws its sprawling tail along—past lights of Clonnach house shining out through foliage of The Meadows—night now come, some stars now gleaming amid that streaming of the clouds' migration, like sparks fleeing amid reeks that came streaming from some galaxy's conflagration down in the dark back-parts and bowels of the boundless; and so onward past Clonnach walls, past the doctor's, a buzzing of tongues as constantly following her feet as when water is boiling, and bees are swarming after their queen, all asking "Where we going to?," some saying "Her be bound somewhere," and "It's wonderful to see her back!," and "We be bound for the rectory, looks like"; "So they've took White-Deighton! What a thing!"; "Us'll soon know everything"; "Aye, her 'd know a thing or two"; "Harry Price be gone to Bristol: who'd be ringing his bell?"—for still the bells' notes kept stepping down, and stepping down, as when one skips with a rope, and still with mooning persists and skips, addicted to rhythm; and now it was left turn through the lychgate into the churchyard, Massingham murmuring with offence to his men "Come on, see it through," Dr. White-Deighton's eyebrows up in surprise, and Gilfillan, sticking close, asked her "Say, though, are we a funeral?"

She said afresh to him "Everything wet! everything washed in freshness"; and she moaned with emotion "Blessed dead imbedded in it! blesseder living that see it"—several petals still persisting on the tiptop of the four rose-bushes shivering beside the little path that rises to pass under the apse; the two yew-trees there protesting, tittering, at the wind, as when with rumpled skirts girls wring and wrestle, tittering, messed-about by romping Toms; so, too, the two hollies, whose groups of berries, glossy now under brooklets of rain-dew, more bravely arrayed them in grossness of rubies than Gabriel in his glories; some mounds of grass, lately mown, lay draggled now among the graves—everything freshly drenched: and it was very true, what she said, that the dead looked comfortable and mothered, tucked like babies in beds so freshly made. To one of which beds she stepped straight—up that petty apse-path—to that bed that had at its head an obelisk of prophyry close by the O'Connor family-grave, and in gold on the stone the letters:

There she stopped, Massingham beside her with a resigned expression of face that was not without some offence of the nostrils, nigh behind her being White-Deighton, Gilfillan, the rector, her Lizzie Davis, Tom Price, her Jim Davis, Harriet Davis, Glenelg Grant, Gwylln Williams, the general crowd spreading over the little hillside of grasses and graves which rises from the churchyard roadlet up to the south church-side; and, near now in the ear, that routine of the bells' trebles that kept stepping down from doh to soh, as when some moper rope-skips in a drooping mood to a drooping tune; but of this elegy no one was conscious, everyone wondering what next, prospecting at her on tiptoe with pitched chin, wondering what thing some one of the winds might bring on its wings; until every breast vibrated when, bending her mouth down toward the grave, going red in the face, she gave out a shout...

Ecstasy now—no sound—an expectancy to see the earth burst up at that summons, and give birth to Monk exultant, as when Lazarus came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes.

And, though nothing happened, every panting heart there stood dumb, agape, agaze at that grave, still expecting Monk to come—though into some heads the concept of horror was now stealing that her recent haps may have addled her in the head, set her dancing mad...

And now afresh she bent down toward the ground, and afresh out of her breast a shout sounded...

And still no mutter was uttered, only a moaning from a wind that whooped away through that human troop sequestered there in a lonesome mood within the vastness of the dark.

But now Massingham's nose-wrinkles had an expression of disgust that was every moment growing...

A minute... And now her boy Jim Davis, close behind her, broke the stillness, letting slip a tittering in a species of hysteria.

The rector, too, in an anguish of embarrassment, let himself venture to breathe at her other ear "Shall we go on to the rectory?"

But now she, too, spoke: "Ah, here you are, no need to be nervous, look—shake hands!," putting out her hand to Monk amid a wind of whispers whipped out quick like the wind of whips, "There he is!," "That's him!," " That's Monk!," while white, with hanging head, Monk stood there. Massingham's lamp flashed on him, showing the thin upper lip hanging flat, a vague paleness of eyes behind their glasses' glamour, a mass of forehead like actors' foreheads heightened by top-caps: no doubt!—this was Monk: not in a shroud, but in shirt and trousers—of the county-police!

Looking him up and down with offence at the perplexity of him, Massingham asked "Where do you spring from, you?"

Split in front, she now jerked down to the roadlet, and, split astern, driven reluctant, out to the road.

Chapter XXVIII
CATASTROPHE

ON the road she said to Massingham "I want to go to Clonnach to tell Miss O'Connor something—won't take long; then you can come to my place... Send the people home."

But this was not so easy, Monk being a magnet to them: so that Massingham's "get you gone" fell forceless. Only a moment they separated before Alan Walpole's rush to gush over Agnes' hand; then, an agitated flock, followed to Clonnach-gate, in to the lawn, where the officers ordered "stand back," while Agnes alone walked forward, Monk being held as a species of prisoner, to be everybody's peep-show there where he stood under the cedar's shade.

For Mrs. Sayce, who at this after-dinner hour often played the piano, was away visiting; and Massingham, standing under the cedar by Monk, could between hangings see Miss O'Connor seated solitary in the drawing-room, reading in an easy-chair with idle eyelids.

He, and all, saw Agnes pry in through one of the French-windows, then saw her step round to the house-side, to go up the four conservatory-steps, in order, from the conservatory, to enter the drawing-room.

He could not see her entrance; but, at about the moment when she must have entered, he saw Foy O'Connor bound up-right, dash away a cigarette, snatch something out of a "vanity-bag."

And in the third second after this there burst out of Agries Heygate's heart a bellow of passion that rang clear to every ear of the people outside:

Immediately afterwards she dashed into Massingham's sight, dashing to chase Foy three times round a chess-table, heaping meantime shriek upon shriek, "Help! Help! Help!"

But this was over before the foremost of the runners could reach the room, she being then on her knees before Foy O'Connor, who was seated in an easy-chair, both of them as utterly filched of colour as fish-flesh is.

And now the crowded room stood all dumb-struck, lost in awe, prying on tiptoe, until White-Deighton on one side of the dying lifted his eyes to mention to Massingham on the other side "Nothing to do!—prussic acid: dead within ten minutes"—her nose now uttering snorings of stertor, her throat pouring the rote of a purring that hurried, her eyes, as they dimmed and dimmed at that wine's might, seeming to look inward on her own soul's doing and doom, on the sum of her being within the sum of Being; and she was the centre of an efflux that irked the sense of smell, for the urgency of the venom was purging her, her steps now turned toward corruption, her structure toward destruction. But it was useless to move her till that beautiful nose ceased from its morose breathing; and, meantime, the officers got the drawing-room rid of the throng; then the body was borne to bed, Agnes being for many minutes left alone there on her knees, her face hidden away. When a group of them again entered the room they found her face-down on a couch, her body sullenly bobbing with sobs, sullenly, obstinately, not to be consoled. "Cheer up, now" Massingham many times muttered over her; "never mind" the doctor many times suggested; but long she lay there unresponsive, sobs shocking her with a periodic obstinacy, till she got out in choking gutturals which broke and groaned "Not my fault—I sent her a telegram—I told her—I swore to God—she didn't do it—dead—she's dead..."

Now the doctor asked to be allowed to go to get her something; and, accompanied by the "plain-clothes" men, made haste home, came again with a moly, which he got her to swallow: and now within some minutes, worn out and lulled, she was asleep.

There, watching at her head, sat the doctor, and, watching at the couch's foot, Alan Walpole, never saying anything.

The others, Gilfillan, Massingham, the two police, had a meal near eleven o'clock—a mute meal, their heads all thronged with thoughts, and every minute Massingham's eye rested anew with meditation on Monk, who during the meal in "The Small Dining-room" was seated in retirement in a corner, in other clothes now.

Then, after midnight, Agnes started awake in a scare, with "Not my fault" on her lips.

"No, no," the doctor tenderly said, "not your fault... I want you now to eat something."

This she was readily led to, being famished; and, the house being now wrapped in dumbness of slumber, it was Monk himself who waited upon her in that Small Dining-room (behind the drawing-room), where, eating apples and butter with tears, she said to him "Why be funky? You couldn't help!": and this somewhat comforted Monk.

Chapter XXIX
NIGHT-TIME

AFTERWARDS he sat afresh on the Spanish chest which was in his corner under a minstrels'-gallery, she then having Gilfillan and Massingham on her left at that table, with White-Deighton and Alan Walpole on her right, all seated on old oak chairs like thrones in a room which has a chapel mood—oak-panelled, ecclesiastical candlesticks, a painted window containing the six Phipps-O'Connor coats, like Joseph's coat, showed-up by moonshine coming in—a full moon, which through one window-leaf White-Deighton could spy, she shining now within a white cloudlet surrounded with prism-colours, like a lamp under a lampshade of white silk which is fringed about with pinks and browns; and, shaking her face, she said "Hasn't done any wrong, look"—meaning Monk—"I don't think I ever entertained the idea that he poisoned O'Connor. Nobody did: O'Connor was not poisoned."

Upon which Massingham's nostrils wrinkled up as in offence at the O'Connor shield of velvet, broidered in white wire, hung just before him; while Gilfillan, agaze at a wood-fire gabbling on a Tudor fire-back, sat paled like paste. He said nothing; but the doctor, after a start, remarked agitatedly "No! here you are hardly very credible"—some morning and new heavens of hope dawning all over him.

"Didn't you vow that he was not?" Agnes asked him: "and I vowed that he was. Now I vow that he was not, and you vow that he was. We know that the pathologists found poison in him, hut—Was he poisoned, Monk?"

And Agnes: "No. Listen well, Monk, to what I say, and, if I go wrong anywhere, correct me... Wasn't poisoned, look—saw a wraith, and died. Didn't I have a kind of dream about it?—about 'the wraith of the faith'? And when I found the black box—"

"Aye; wish to God I hadn't—hence this shutting of the eyes to sleep this night... But from the first I knew one thing—who killed Hester Hayes. That night you came down, Massingham, I hinted that she 'might be lying behind those bastions' of The Old House: but you said 'not so, place been searched by police.' She was there, though. I, too, trusted in police-search, until I came down and met Winter; then I determined to search for myself, and did; hadn't the keys, but my sense of smell told me behind which door a body lay—door of solar-room, upper floor. And since there had been a police-search, with the keys, and 'nothing found', murderer must be one of the police, must be that one who had reserved that part of castle for his own searching. But Winter was in charge of search-party: so I need not go into three or four other proofs that it was he who killed. We know why: she had hired a cottage that day at Marchstow, didn't intend to be banished, and Winter, a family-man, by whom she was with child, went mad with alarm, killed her.

"As to her child being Dr. White-Deighton's—forgive, Doctor—that's nonsense. Doctor did give her ergotine, as I soon found out; and that's improper, medically, without consulting another doctor: so I, knowing this, questioned Dr. Scott of Elberleigh: and Dr. White-Deighton had consulted him, the girl having a malformation of pelvis fatal in labour: they intended to interfere surgically, if ergotine which they gave failed. As to Monk being the father, I've heard from a certain housemaid that Monk was once seen kissing her cheek; and she went to Monk's room in the night-time—"

"Saving your presence," Monk half-rose to say, "I'll not have you say the creature was ever doing such a thing, then."

"She did," Agnes answered: "took with her a match-box which contained hair-pins instead of matches, struck herself on Discobolus, drawing blood. Went to get something out of Monk's short jacket-pocket: for Monk was sticking to the body upstairs in short jacket; and, as she meant to be out the next day at Marchstow, and wanted to show the something to Winter on meeting Winter in evening, she pilfered the something while Monk was asleep. You will soon see that my account of this night-walking incident is true: in which case it is evidence against, not for, sweetness between Monk and Hester; stealing a kiss on cheek is also evidence against; and all the evidence for is pettifogging—I needn't go into it: Monk was not the father, Winter was."

Her lids blinked quick a little, upward at the minstrels' gallery, thinking; then: "But Winter hadn't The Old House keys when he killed Hester... Run, Monk, bring keys... Yet she was locked in solar-room when police searched: for Wright tried that solar-room door just before Winter dispersed them to search, and door was locked—you know Wright, reliable chap, chairman of Constables' Branch, Board of Police Federation. So, evidently, Winter got a key on some day between murder and search. But everybody in Clonnach has denied ever being asked for keys previous to police-search. So how did Winter get? Ah, here they are"—as Monk handed her the keys; and she passed them on to Massingham, saying "Examine this one: you will find that it was secretly given to Winter after dinner on a Wednesday evening by her who lies upstairs."

"Wednesday—three evenings after Hester's disappearance," Massingham muttered, gazing through a glass at one of the bunch, head-to-head with Gilfillan; while Dr. White-Deighton and Walpole bent over the table to gaze. And Walpole breathed "How is it possible to tell?"

"See this little scratch in the rust," Gilfillan lifted his eyes to tell him—"lately made—by an end of the split-ring: the key was taken off the ring so Monk shouldn't chance to miss the bunch gone from his room: therefore secretly given."

"Yes, but why by her?" Massingham muttered over it: "'Wednesday'?—'evening'?"

"Exactly"—from her—"smell of ammonia hydrosulphide, with which she oxydised silver: did silver-smithing on Wednesday evenings after dinner. And she leaves her silver-smithing to nick a key for a policeman who has murdered a girl! Did she know that he had? If she didn't then, she did the next day when she had key back: for, as Hester was missing, she'd see why a key was wanted, would go and see the body—could walk straight to it, having given only one key. And Winter knew that she could, and—didn't care! He could have thrown the body into lake, but preferred that she should share his secret rather than take any such risk. You see, he wasn't afraid of her. And only one reason is conceivable: he knew a secret of hers."

Now stillness a little, her lids lowered; and no one spoke, all as bent upon her as upon a box that is being unpacked; until she raised her face to the minstrels'-gallery, and, her fingers gripped together, continued, with her little blinkings when thinking, and that little lift of her underlids, so that she appeared to peer: "So she had a secret as deep as Winter's... From the beginning I got the consciousness of some enigma about her—hint of something odd—tantalizing—couldn't give it a name—silly. But one day, she and I talking about the 'books' that Sir Patrick had kept in black box, and had made O'Loughlin burn, she suggested that they had been—improper books: and that minute the enigma of her was solved for me; I said to myself 'you aren't what you seem'—aye, so ungently said, too, forgetting that we must forgive to be forgiven. The same day I became aware that her maid didn't attend her bathing 'at present', and, going home, I found myself saying 'Why, she has had a child!.'.. Now, how did I know that? I don't know! A nurse at St. Barts' says she can tell by a glance at a girl's back whether the girl is still a girl: women can, without knowing how—I know by her laugh, I fancy—way she dares to show her gums. Anyway, I said so; and I thought 'This is the secret that Winter knows! But how does he? She'd never have baby in England—risky! have it abroad; and she has been abroad for a year; but baby may have been brought to England... And the father? Dr. White-Deighton?'—for I knew that, after arriving at Leigh on the baronet's death-night, she had wired to the doctor 'I am here. Mary': an appointment, intimacy. But, then, I was soon to discover that that was a fake telegram—signed 'Mary', so that the doctor might not know who Mary was, and not go; yet, as Mary is one of her names, the P.O. duplicate of the telegram would be there to show, if need be, that it was to meet the doctor that she had been at Leigh, and to camouflage what she really had been at Leigh for—Ah, no end to her prudence, her forethought, her resource. In truth, she was not at Leigh to meet anyone: for, after sending the telegram, she left the tavern for an hour—"

"No, pardon me there"—Massingham struck the table—"the lady was under the eye of Mrs. Quilter, the inn-keeper—"

"Sh-h," Gilfillan let slip at him, leaning keenly toward Agnes with a gaze that seemed eager to leap out to eat her; Alan Walpole, too, was leaning, alert, eating her words; while Dr. White-Deighton sat stiff, lids lowered, colourless, awaiting, resting in the strength and warmth of her aura, the festiveness of her presence. She answered to Massingham: "Somebody was under the inn-keeper's eye; but that was Marie, not Marie's mistress. And Marie, beautifully costumed that evening, was speaking in whisperings: so that Mrs. Quilter, who knew by rumour of Miss O'Connor's whispering way, assumed that the maid was the mistress. How do I know? Why, Mrs. Quilter never once heard the mistress utter a word: for then there'd have been two whisperers—remembers saying something to the mistress, but it was the maid who answered; and when the mistress 'had a face-ache'—as the maid has—it was the maid who mentioned it in whisperings, who chose a chamber for the mistress to 'lie down'; and though the maid talks good English, when I suggested something foreign about her Mrs. Quilter said 'Yes, now you say so.' The dumb mistress, then, posed as the French maid. Possibly the maid, too, posed as the mistress; but when I once plied her with questions she denied having ever whispered, and seemed sincere; moreover, that puncturing of the motor-tyre, to make the stoppage at Leigh seem natural, shows that the maid was not in the secret. No, I think she was under hypnotic suggestion to speak in whisperings that evening, her Subconscious having long since become subject to her mistress' suggestions—through her daily face-aches. As to the motive of the posing, you assume that it was to establish an alibi; and that's so: for when Mrs. Quilter rapped about 8.20, to ask if she could do anything for the face-ache, she had no answer, door locked, bird flown—that ground-floor bedroom it was—easy to slip through window. Bird flown—not 'asleep', as Mrs. Quilter believed—"

At a sigh of excitement venting round her she stopped a little, smiling upon Alan Walpole, who, his eyes tied to hers, anon moistened his lips in a hurry, lacking time for any act separate from his alertness of interest. Then she: "Flown whitheraway? To Clonnach: mud-spots of Clonnach graveyard-soil on mud-guards of bicycle brought from London in car—brand-new bicycle, brand-new car—still there at Leigh. So, on 'going to lie down' about 7.30, she slips out of window, nicks bicycle from car, is off in the dark—new lamp never lighted—off for Clonnach, five miles, and is back in bedroom before 8.40, to catch 8.49 train for Adversane—nicely arranged. And we shall come upon many other proofs that she went out, went to Clonnach. So she wasn't at Leigh to meet anyone there: the wire from 'Mary' to Dr. White-Deighton was a fake wire, to build up still compacter that wiliest of alibis. And while she is off to Clonnach her uncle dies!—as if she went to kill him. But, then, that's nonsense. If that poor dear had in her a spark of affection, it was for her uncle—I know—for Monk, too, I think—"

"Yes, Monk"—her eyes dwelt a second on him; then: "The baronet had fallen ill only two hours before—she didn't know he was in bed—couldn't have gone to poison his medicine, now. To do what, then? Look at this railway-ticket"—she lifted her bag from a Jacobean carving-table at her hand, to take out a letter-case, and pick from this a ticket in tissue-paper, saying to Massingham "Hold it by the edges, don't touch the face... You will see that it was taken at Paddington by a French girl who had a baby in arms—mulatto baby...": and head-to-head Massingham and Gilfillan knit their brows at it, until Gilfillan eagerly breathed "Yes! See! took the ticket with her left fingers, baby being in right arm—had powder on her fingers; and, see here, baby's finger-prints—the ticket was given to it to grip in the train—its fingers thick with powder. But I don't quite—Why 'mulatto'?"

"Why were its fingers 'thick with powder'?" Agnes answered. "Suppose its face was thick, too? Then, its fingers were thick to make it a white baby under its veil, and not invite observation. Now, its face was thick: for it is a 'To Leigh' ticket, Thursday, 5th September, and though a ticket-collector remembers a baby about then, no station-man at little Leigh remembers any brown baby: therefore face was white; and since hands were whitened, face was whitened—to hide dark skin."

On which, glancing, he said to Massingham "Of course... See! '8.57'—elongated 5, 7 crossed: the other Latins cross 7 lower... How did you get it?"

"From London," she answered: "country-stations send them up twice a week, tied in batches, sorted in order-of-number... Now, she who lies upstairs had with endless strategy contrived to seem to be where she was not—had private business that night: that I got to know; and, as I had before guessed a baby, I naturally connected private business with private baby: for I knew now from the 'Mary'-wire that Dr. White-Deighton was out of it—not he was to be met—baby probably—nurse foreign probably. So I questioned the Leigh station-men: any foreigner with baby on September 5? They said 'Baby, yes, one evening about then—didn't know about foreign.' When I suggested that ticket might reveal something, they said 'Ticket gone to head-office': so I sent for September 5 batch—just before it was to be mushed into pulp—and in batch was this ticket, with '8.57' in pencil on back. But 8.57 is when the train stops, between Leigh and Marchstow, at Adversane station: so the memorandum '8.57' meant that nurse had been directed to get out at Leigh, walk across to Adversane, take train there: and Glenelg Grant remembers her waiting half-an-hour at Adversane: no English but 'Marchstow'; got into train from which Miss O'Connor, coming from Leigh, got out. No baby then: had parted with baby somewhere in walking from Leigh to Adversane. So baby's dead: for we'd know, if any brown baby was now about. Baby's dead."

Afresh, her lip shivery, she checked herself at breaths of agitation venting about her, at the doctor's moan "This is distressing," mixed with Gilfillan's hiss "Yes! go on," and with Monk's outcry, "It would never be true!"

"Monk, it is"—she shook her face at him—"baby's dead. And, since dead, killed: aye, it wasn't sick before—good old grip, little dints of finger-nails in ticket under glass. Killed that night—by whom? Not by nurse: she perfectly calm at Adversane station; slept at 'Marchstow Arms,' and next morning left nipple there on washstand—I have nipple. No care there, no consciousness of baby's death. Did mother kill, then? You say 'yes'; and you add 'never meant to': for, if she has it fetched to her own home—it was in the graveyard, as I guess from a mud-mark on handle-bar, that she took baby over from nurse—if she has it fetched right to her home, riskiest place in wide world for killing, it was certainly not to kill that she had it fetched. So, if she killed, we can swear how: in stopping its mouth; stopping mouth frenziedly, desperately. Child cried! Cried where someone was, where she never dreamt that anyone would be! Oh, my God, I am destined to weep many a tear for her... She is out to do good, look, and her God sends bad upon her head. Child cries! And there's someone to hear! Aye! O'Loughlin's about! Hester's about! Winter's about! Out at The Old House. Nobody's ever there! and of all the nights of time why should the good God select this night to plant them there? But there they are—fact—planted—hapless thing this night. She has taken-over baby intending to abandon it (for, if she had arranged with anyone about here to receive it, we three would surely know); but to abandon it in usual way at that hour, nobody about, would have meant its exposure for twelve hours—might have killed it: so she has artfully planned to abandon it under such conditions, that people will be called, will flock immediately to it, see it, put it in The Union; and later, when they tell her about brown foundling, she'll say 'poor little thing, I will adopt.' She carries it, then, under east wall of churchyard, say—some of my details here won't be true, for now I'm conjecturing, but their general truth is proved—carries it to Fishponds, to top of lock-wall, deposits it at floodgates, where those who will rush to shut gates won't fail to notice it; and she sets to open gates—she can never be suspected of opening them for her child, for at that time she is guilefully 'reading magazines' under Mrs. Quilter's eye at Leigh—lovely cunning—well-named 'Lady Capable.' Unfortunately, babies cry when put down; and, as she starts operating crank-handle to wind floodgates open, she spies somebody about—not far off, too, for the night's darkish, bit of a moon invisible: the somebody is O'Loughlin shadowing Hester, jealous; but the instant baby's wailing reaches him he rushes back home to announce 'Banshee going!': for baronet's down in bed, everybody's nerves on the alert for Banshee; and she, seeing him rush, not knowing why or whither, only knowing that he has heard baby, and will certainly be back, skedaddles, leaving baby there, leaving outer floodgate only a little open, is away westward along lock-wall's top, intending to pelt down steps, fly for bicycle, be spinning for Leigh. But before she is at steps she is again beset: after that ghost north of her here's a ghost west of her, coming—Hester, who, waiting for Winter about Old House, has heard baby: never said that she had—timid of admitting that she'd been out at Old House—but did hear; and probably got so near, that mother, recognizing her, believed herself recognized. In which case, all up now with floodgate scheme; nothing to do but dash back, snatch-up baby, hide, devise new scheme. So back she dashes, and, hand on baby's mouth, goes balancing along floodgate's top, then down she jumps fifteen feet—active as six cats, quick in tactics—flood-water guggling away through gate-opening into outermost fishpond, but just a streamlet still: and eastward away she goes, fleeing that Hester-ghost, through east home-covert. In covert may have stopped to pant and ponder upon what next, ducking under cover meanwhile from O'Loughlin running back out, from Monk running out to hark at Banshee: may, I say; what's sure is that she never meant to go to any New House—was hunted to it: for suddenly the flood's on her, look... Oh, gentlemen, believe me, I can hardly keep on: I ask you, was ever a poor human soul, meaning well, so whelmed and pelted as that poor mother that night? Flood's on her! The water's weight has gradually forced, then suddenly flung, the floodgates wide, and she's flying for life, a child on her. And, as she flees, she pitches slick into Winter on his way to meet Hester: her secret's revealed... But, then, he is only one—can be handled after: on she darts through New Garden, flood like pack of dogs galloping upon fox, gaining, heading for New House. But she gets safe to harbour, sneaks unseen into back-door, up back-stair, before ever Monk and O'Loughlin, themselves skedaddling home, can catch glimpse of her; and, flitting along cross-corridor, she slips into own room, to shrink and think, until flood's done."

Now a sigh slipped out of Alan Walpole's heart that sighed "Pitiful!," while Massingham asked "Still conjecturing?"

And she: "Now Monk, running-in wet, was up to baronet: baronet asleep; then Mary Skerrett's up to Monk to whisper 'Flood in Martha Parnell's sick-room'; and, as they two whisper, they hear second Banshee (neither its temper nor its health improved by mother's previous smotherings), Monk moving entranced to north door of baronet's room to look across laboratory toward her south door, hearkening to Banshee; she in darkness seeing him look; and afterwards believes—I know—that he in his heart knows her secret. But Banshee done in some seconds—for ever. Did she get cross with it? An angel would have. Suddenly done and dumb—for ever. No more Banshee..."

Woebegone, Agnes shook her forehead upward at the gallery, stopping a little, while all sat still with lowered lids, the doctor touching his hair charily like a shrine, his eyes shut.

Then she: "Oh, well... So now Monk runs down to Martha Parnell: and mother may have followed him pretty close, to venture now down by back-stair out into flood-water; but about now comes that thundering of trunks, battering round about back-door, scaling stair like gang of alligator-snouts: and I fancy her standing at that stair-head, dead baby on breast, staring at that stair, blocked, impossible, asking of her heart 'what have I done to be so undone?'—molested, infested, pestered. Nothing for it now, except the long jeopardy of rushing the front-stair: and presently she ventures upon a dash that way. But only her shadow is ever to dash down that stair: for there at the very stair-foot stands a crowd passing remarks round Martha Parnell's bed: five of them catch sight of the shadow just as she checks her dash to dash away back with her dead—beset, badgered, shackled, caged. So now, what next? Here is a capable brain, brisk as a blink in inventing: doesn't like defeat, look, least of all things defeat, likes death better: and now she's out for fighting. Finds a dead on her hands: and the dead decay; the baronet, weary man, mayn't have back-stair cleared for—weeks; as for front-stair, two nurses there at stair-foot, one or other awake through night, uncle awake through night—likes to sit in overcoat under cedar with nosey elkhound Scout, never likes sitting near fire: she mayn't be able to bear smell of baby out of house for many days. If she drops baby out of back-window into 'area', now awash, that will kick-up such a splash, people will hear, nor she mayn't find child immediately in flowing flood; if she lowers child with sheets, sheets may be seen by people rushing about on flood-business, and she be seen sliding down pipe to it; if she waits a day, days, then lowers it in night-time, dogs will surely smell, tell men—publish it to uncle, to nurse awake, to gamekeepers about, alert; if she attempts to bear it out in a box to bury in day-time, ah, the peril of the tramp through populous Clonnach with horrid odd box; if she sends box to be posted to fictitious address, box will soon stink, and spring back home to her like boomerang—blocked, baulked, hampered, harassed. One sort of box, though, will work: eternity-box, coffin. At tacked by her Maker, she counter-attacks, her hand now against every man, ten inventors winking quick in headpiece. In passing through to back-stair previously, she has peeped, seen baronet asleep: unwell—medicine there. Never well, elderly, fretted, terrified, heavy with his sighings; she young, light; and her life done for, unless he dies today instead of tomorrow: so, cross with destiny (if she ever was cross with anything), she thinks I've been driven to kill one, may as well kill two, ten.' After doubling back from front-stair, she peeps in afresh, then; believes him still asleep: but he isn't asleep now, look—tree-trunks have roused him: lies there quiet, wondering what the row's about, his back to her perhaps, as she nicks medicine quick without sound. But no doubt elkhound Scout, lying there, seeing her again, gave out some kind of sound: and the sick may then have been aware of somebody about, of matches struck in laboratory—here's one match which I found on a shelf: you can see how she held it aloft, looking for poison"—presenting it delicately from a receptacle in her reticule.

And Massingham, poring over it, muttered "Aye, it was held upright—the black short, thin, sharply-curved... But why she? that night?"

"Look through your glass," Gilfillan breathed: "see here! two spots like powder—thumb and forefinger—from baby's face."

"Yes, that's it"—from Agnes... "So, medicine-bottle being full, she pours some out—dark medicine, digitalis—stain still there on laboratory-sink; and she fills up bottle with—strychnine. Has determined to give mercury, doesn't know, what we know, that strychnine has got into bottle labelled 'Mercurochrome 220.' So, baby now locked in some trunk, she re-enters uncle's chamber, deposits poisoned medicine upon bedside-table, is away to stackpipe window—quick's the word, has to be back at Leigh to catch train. But she is seen—her back at least. As she turns in her hurry from table, hand still deserting bottle, she makes some sound—she or elkhound Scout—and baronet's eyes, moving aside, see her flit like spirit across room to disappear through window. See with what feelings? He knows it can't yet be 8.57 when her train's due! must think her a wraith, spirit: and there he sticks dumbstruck until she has slipped down stackpipe and is well away for Leigh—two scratches of her shoes in pipe's lichen still visible to good eye from ground. Nor has she ever guessed that she'd been seen—as you'll see—for it is minutes before his heart-trouble permits him to start up, smell medicine, detect strychnine; and now, without replacing stopper, out to heaven he howls it aloud; then, as they throng upstairs, drops dead, pointing at poison. Afterwards when she hears of this, she thinks he did it after drinking poison."

Now Monk silently cast up palms and eyes, rising to toss some logs upon the fire, while Gilfillan enquired "But when, then?," and stopped; and Massingham: "Aye, when did he drink the mercurochrome? When?"

"Yes, but you leave no possible—," stopping at a sound that now hopped out of the doctor, a joy-sound, those blanched hands of his now shivering there on the table, while Gilfillan, pale, gazed straight into flames that were streaming glibly about between the logs, with an in-and-out gaiety of the river Phlegethon careering with frolic between the rocks of a reef; and she said "Give me a chance"... Drops dead... Doctor, going home by Old House, is told something, comes; is told of pointing at bottle, but takes no notice, knows not poisoned; goes home. Then her train: she comes—shoes wetted, as Mrs. Quilter noticed at Leigh—looks at dead, at medicine: and still her malign luck that night! for Monk, summoned by baronet's outcry, hands trembling, has happened to knock-over medicine, left unstoppered by baronet; some of medicine has run out: so she, seeing some gone from bottle, is convinced that baronet has drunk some, been killed by her; and since she imagined that it was mercurochrome which she had put into medicine, when mercurochrome was found in him at exhumation, her certainty that she had murdered, confirmed before, was more confirmed. So now she nicks bottle, tosses poison quick out of window: a little spills on urn; when I break off urn-rim, on rim turns-up what had really been mixed with medicine—strychnine. Now, strychnine in medicine, no strychnine in him: so he had drunk none of medicine: was not poisoned."

"Well, but"—Massingham tossed his hand in pain—"mercurochrome was in him? If he did not drink it before death, did he drink it after?"

Her eyes smiled upon him, but without reply she went on: "She presented poison, then: wanted a coffin to bury baby in. Did she actually bury baby with him? Yes, for—"

"She did!" Gilfillan cried, "I see! I know now!" And Agnes: "We know that no baby was in coffin at exhumation: no, but a stain on pyjama-jacket was there—from baby's head compressed by coffin-lid; string-marks round feet were there—baby placed between legs, and feet tied together to keep baby tight. And as soon as I state simple truth, your clever explanations of stain and string seem unreal to you: you believe truth before I prove—"

"Yes, yes, 'believe' "—from Massingham—"But, then, the saw-cuts in the coffin's bottom—what for?"

"Give us a chance," she said... "Baby, then, was put in, let's say—it will be proved. Sister Lola, while dining, is dosed, sleeps kneeling through night; lid's unscrewed, baby's in, ankles tied, lid screwed, all done, breath of relief. Next day funeral: nobody notices any saw-cuts in coffin. Why? You think saw-cuts camouflaged with varnish by Monk's or someone's agitated hands? Pooh, they'd still have been seen. Simple truth is no saw-cuts were there to see—"

"Well, we'll leave that for now," she answered... "Anyway, baby's buried, say; but no baby on exhumation: taken out, then. And now mark the power of suggestion! Someone in a newspaper-office in London happens to write headline 'Attempt to Snatch O'Connor's Body—Morning Baulks'; and that thing hypnotises, strikes blind, a nation, ten nations, including you and me—can't forgive myself. It doesn't enter my headpiece that she may have got down to coffin, got out what she wanted, then tossed soil in, to make all say 'morning baulked'—oh, her artistry, larkiness of her craft! The moment broadcast said 'baronet to be exhumed' she must have decided 'baby to come up this night.' And she did it! Work for a girl there—six hours at least. Did it naked apparently, she and Pan dancing partners that riotous night; and little did she think that a third was there, and heard her. Nothing on, I conclude, but gloves and boots: came home naked, bathed, no stains on clothes—quickness of the hand deceives the eye!—baby then safely buried within Grace Price's fresh gravemound, buried in black box, which had that night been abstracted from laboratory, as I was to find by passing light-rays through box's dust-mark. But, though hypnotised by journalists, I got inkling of what was what on third day after exhumation when I first saw coffin at Union: for, whereas the fact of a screw being absent from lid-foot was presumed to be due to oversight of undertakers in screwing-down, my lens showed a little crushing of the wood in countersink for screw-head, and I felt sure screw had been in. So, in going home from rector's sick-bed on fifth day, I went down into grave, looked for screw, and after four hours of 'seek-and-you-will-find' found it within slant dug-away at grave-foot: here's screw"—taking it from her letter-case; and while Massingham examined it, she, looking outward through a leaf of the coloured window, could see the moon smouldering now among cloud-heaps dark like tar-barrels half-illumined, and like smokes of combustions smouldering in the stubble-fields of October when some breeze's attack is scattering the flanks of their rank caravans; and she said "Moon setting, see: morning coming... You can see that she held screws in her mouth while screwing on, let this one drop, trod on it probably, couldn't find, no time, let it slide—"

And Agnes: "You would in daylight... Screw-threads lighter-coloured than upper part: action of acid; she had carbolic in mouth—naturally; and there's a little streak of patina within saw-cut in screw-head, due to a stream of moisture, her breathing... So now I knew that coffin had been got at on broadcasting night. But what for? No organs removed: hardly the doctor's hand, though doctor's footprints, Monk's footprints, two spades: looked like doctor and Monk, Monk a wreck in bed next day, pair of his boots missing, doctor burning to hurry away to American university, right hand in glove, presumably to hide bruises made by spade, he pretty sick, admitting to me at rector's on night after digging 'I have had a shock, I have bungled.' But left hand all white! and on fifth night I saw right hand without glove at rector's bedside, and now guessed what 'shock' was—palm burned, not bruised! See this glove" —taken from her handbag—"I nicked it one night when calling upon doctor: rubber glove, look; rent in it due to sparking of induction-coil, Wimshurst-machine, or something: potential too intense crashed through glove, gashing palm: that was his 'bungling'—that sort of bungling being more wrong, ugly, to him than other sorts to us common folk. So I said, on seeing palm, 'his' footprints not his, therefore's 'Monk's' hardly Monk's. Whose then? She had gone off to London on morning after broadcasting—to hide hands? in which case she had worn boot of Monk and boot of doctor—to throw more suspicion upon the already suspected? hence two spades used? But how was boot of doctor procured? I soon knew: for I had noticed, what you two don't seem to have, that baronet's row of boots, put-away in wardrobe-drawer, were eleven, not twelve! No maker's name inside—locally made. So, going to shoemaker Newnes, I got that he made baronet's boots, and doctor's, too—on the same last! She'd know this: so took one of baronet's and pair of Monk's, to cloak self by exposing others. Aye, I have to charge her with loving neighbour less than self—a little: didn't love self much! loved policy, conduct, coming-out top, victory for victory's sake—not self: something rummy, I think, about nose-ear-and-throat apparatus, apart from vocal chords; have reason to believe she had singing-in-ear: hence loose smoking and don't-care-a-damnism; didn't love self, or anyone. She'd tread, then, about grave with the three boots on both feet alternately, then trample to make footmarks chaotic, then throw Monk's two into lake, to be dragged after, placing baronet's one, all dabbled, in black box to bury with baby. And this against Monk and doctor, while believing that Monk and doctor knew her secret and were screening her—snow-cold, all politics, no compunction. For it must have occurred to her that Monk's blather about 'Banshee' might be a blind to hide his knowledge of baby's crying, and on broadcasting night Monk's 'if I wasn't the fool' must have meant for her 'fool to have been mum for anybody'; as to her thoughts of doctor, remember that toxic dose of mercury (half-a-grain) has marked effects—on duodenum, jejunum—gastro-intestinal inflammation: so that when doctor gave death-certificate for heart-disease, she couldn't help thinking 'he's not so raw; knows poison, suspects me: was about Fishponds, may have seen something of me; and my wire from 'Mary' has led him to find out that I was at Leigh, left Leigh, went back—with wet boots: he knows, keeping it dark, meaning to marry my money'—"

"Bear with me, Doctor"—she touched the back of his hand, now eyeing a moon-butterfly winging white in the sky—two cloudlets for wings, and, in betwixt, the moon besprinkling the wings' white roots with spirits-of-iris, soul-of-opal; but in some moments it was no more—disappeared, setting—a meeting and meaning not to be seen again by any gazer for an aeon of years; whereupon she said "So three, she thought, were in her secret—Winter, Monk, doctor—didn't like that. Winter safe: for, intoxicated by his intimacy with a lady, Winter had dared to kill, he, too, she knew it: he's safe; but, if ever pressure is brought to bear upon the doctor, upon Monk, to prate, that may be perilous: Monk's outcry, 'if I wasn't the fool', at first squall would warn her to mistrust his strength: she'd wish him up above—"

"Yes, Monk"—with an eye on him—"bear with me... And, meantime, she couldn't be sure that they two knew! nor couldn't pump them at all as to what they knew, in case they didn't after all know, and would know from pumping. She'd be in nettles: and it was her anxiety as to Dr. White- Deighton that gave me my first certainty that she believed herself guilty of something, and believed that doctor knew of it. After the death-certificate she must have awaited tender advances from doctor, and when none came, but I came—her anxiety! For quick and sudden Dr. White-Deighton acquired some kind of liking for me—it's no secret, since doctor made a will in my favour—"

"Yes, Great Physician," Agnes answered—"easily known... And, if doctor liked me a lot, I was likely to win him to whisper me hidden things: hence I saw her pale at sight of him and me together. Now, I easily scented that there was no 'love' between her and him, though some dalliance perhaps, once: so when inquest came, and pressure was on him to tell whatever he knew, I understood her motive for throwing at him all Clonnach—didn't dare offer money, so made a will, gave him copy, bribe to gain impregnable silence, after failure of an offer of marriage by her—as I gathered by pumping doctor: which courtship by her was what, I suppose, had made doctor so desirous of flying away to America. All this revealed to me that she had a secret; then I discovered smell of ammonia hydrosulphide on Old House key, this confirming my certainty of existence of a secret: for Winter knew secret; then I spotted fact of maid mistaken for mistress at Leigh inn, escape through window to Clonnach, return to inn; then I traced French nurse through old railway-ticket, and knew now of baby, of cause of flood and Banshee, of cause of baronet's death, of black box vanishing on broadcasting night, of baby in black box; knew, but lacked black box to prove: began digging for box, after telling her I'd dig, and I set watch by day, kept watch by night, to catch her in act of digging up. But here she wiped the floor with me: her shots at me in second night's watch in churchyard made me nervous of shots on third night, or I and Massingham might have been her match. She had invented some pretext to draw doctor to meet her by waterside that third night, her desire being always to mystify, puzzle, throw dust in eyes, and she incriminated him nicely; wore beard, and in thick of fleeing with black box exhibited beard to Massingham—her coolness, counsel! then after hiding box beyond an angel's finding, called out in water 'Am drowning!', to make doctor dash to rescue, and be found drenched. This convinced Massingham; but something raucus in tone of that call told me of faulty vocal chords being goaded into roaring-out sort of groan: my ears were prepared to detect it, for I now understood that she meant doctor and Monk, already suspected, to be suspected of doing the things she did, she shrouding herself aloft in clouds of secrecy beyond reach of suspicion; and if peril of doctor's arrest should become imminent, she trusted in her money-power to overcome Massingham's intention to arrest: for after arrest doctor's own neck in peril might press him to tell out what she presumed that he knew of her. But better than managing Massingham with cheques was death of Monk, of doctor: and she sentenced Monk when inquest impended, then sentenced doctor when peril impended that he'd tell me where black box was. Doctor knew where! for, to hide box where she did, it was necessary to tie a string round box—had come provided with string, in case, and with scissors to snip string nicely to size of box; and, since she couldn't leave string-ends in water to be seen after, doctor saw string-ends, perhaps scissors, in her hand when she swam ashore before dashing for ambush: so, on hearing that a box had been hidden, he could put two and two together, could guess where... Was that it, Doctor?"

"That was it, then," she said... "And Monk! she liked Monk—'A Good Man'—who was being mum for her, as she imagined; but she dreaded pressure upon him to prate, and placidly planned his death—'death', she said, 'being better than life': we get to be God in dying, and hear sweet noise like singing-in-ear. So on inquest forenoon, as we know, she summons Monk to her room, to frighten him out of wits, to say 'hide! no hope for you—foot-prints found round grave—pair of your boots missing—suspected, too, of doing-in Hester Hayes—hide in Old House.' And Monk, funky before this, knowing, what she didn't, that he'd really been up to something queer and secret, is more funky now, and trots off with lot of eatables and keys to lock himself in. She knew he'd drop across Hester Hayes dead in Old House: so when, as she expected, Winter is sent from inquest to fetch Monk, she says to Winter 'All's up with you—Monk will see Hester: I can lend you revolver—no other way out—Monk will seem to have suicided for funk.' Then Winter's off—with 'parcel': the revolver in some sort of box; Monk, too, had a 'parcel'; and that morning she gave the doctor her will in a workbox, so that he might have a 'parcel', and all the three be suspected of having taken away the black box, which she knew would be missed about then—cunning! The next day I miss revolver from Clonnach—"

Now Monk called out "Oh, isn't it hard of heart you are that you'd suggest the like of this, that she'd wish—"

"Monk, I must"—from Agnes with a look—"the truth, Monk... And now Monk and Winter vanish, annihilated. Then Monk's hat found in lake; undoubtedly Monk's: but when Massingham showed it, I noticed that the two hairs sticking inside weren't Monk's colour—rather darker; then when body was dragged sodden, I noticed that boots were pretty loosely laced—with distracted fingers; and when I knew that a man in uniform who bought compass, etc., at St. Anne's didn't utter a syllable to shopman, just pointed at compass, I felt sure it was Monk, whose brogue would have betrayed him: Monk, living, in Winter's clothes; Winter, dead, in Monk's. But I never assumed that Monk had killed Winter, for I had often said on seeing Winter 'You won't live long'—heart all wrong; what I assumed was that Winter stole into Old House, and, coming upon Monk still open-mouthed over Hester, accused Monk of killing; that Monk, too, accused; that Winter fired, missed—bullet there now within floor of solar-room—then fight for weapon, Winter, all jelly of agitation, dropping dead at rap upon cardiac-"

"It's hardly I touched the man," Monk cried out, half-rising: "as it might be a madman the man was with the fright that was on him, and dead he fell."

"Was that it?"—from her: "very good... And now Monk finds himself with couple of bodies and a Clonnach revolver on his hands, not to mention O'Connor's death: and he'd be pretty scared for the neck of him. He thinks of flight—America—has £7,000. But flight in butler's rig-out? he'd never contrive to fly many miles; if, though, he slips-on Winter's things, slips his things upon Winter, flings Winter into water, then he will be dragged unrecognisable from water, and get away unsought as Monk—doesn't stop to think that he'll still be sought as Winter: and all in a scurry, quick like bird nicking crumbs, he does it—doesn't linger over lacing boots, forgets handkerchief and key of scrivania in jacket he puts on Winter, brings boat, gets Winter, Hester, in—nobody about—drops them into water: now is ready to make paces. Why didn't he, then? He didn't, we know. Those thefts of food and newspapers out of Clonnach—no trace of housebreaking—soon proved Monk about to me: had some house-key. And that night of his fight and 'flight' Mr. Gilfillan and I saw a light on water—Monk, we know now—looking for Winter or for Hester. What for? I knew when I once knew that Winter was in Monk's clothes: for I said 'Monk had dressed Winter in tremor of funk, forgetting that there was something in a pocket of his, and was looking for Winter in water to have the something back.' Something important! Risky to look! but he could look only then, since police and people would soon be about. And he failed to find, for Mr. Gilfillan and I went to investigate light, then police came, and were thereabouts after, until bodies were got up. Hence, when Winter was got up Monk would be keen on newspapers, would nick them in nicking food from Clonnach, to know whether the 'something' had been found on Winter. 'Something' was not found: Winter, all soft and far-gone, was searched in hurry of aversion. Still, his front-pockets were gone into: so the something must have been in some hidden hip-pocket behind; and it was something quite flat, thin, or must have been sighted. Flat, thin, but not paper: for then Monk wouldn't have bothered about seeking it that evening after it had been hours in water: may have been ivory cover torn from this book, look"—she took from her bag a little book: "Journée du Crétien Sanctifiée par la Prière et la Meditation"; old, its back-cover half off, its front gone; under the title, in writing, "Souvenir du mois d'Août, Confrérerie de N.D. du Mont Carmel: Patrick O'Connor"; and while Massingham examined it she added "Now, we have evidence that Monk had lost something before the inquest-day, before broadcasting, before baronet's burial: the night after Hester's death nurse Hebbs spies him creeping secretly with light, peering behind furniture, seeking earnestly; the night before Hester's death Hester enters his bedroom, nicks something: for the next forenoon, before going to Marchstow, she forgets it on her dressing-table, and Nellie, who shared her room, notices it—envelope 'For Monk'—and is going to read 'the postcard' inside, but Hester comes in. 'For Monk, Glinten, not 'To', as you said: Hester would have written 'To'—or nothing. But this was an envelope scribbled-on beforehand—containing instructions, say—'for' Monk, to be given to Monk at the right time; and what was inside was no 'postcard', but ivory cover of this book, which Hester, in doing Monk's room, had chanced to see in jacket, had read on it something about baronet's death—everybody now whispering about mystery of death—something pretty rummy, fishy—so she decides in nighttime to nick ivory, to exhibit to police-officer Winter at meeting the next evening, meaning very likely to replace ivory later: but Winter killed her. Next day Monk misses thing, seeks it in night-time, can't find; and on broadcasting night cries out 'If I wasn't the fool'—to lose it. Now, suppose it was instructions on that book-cover to do something rummy, then we see real reason why Monk fled from inquest— funk, not of what he was suspected of doing, but of what he'd done—and no instructions to show: Hester had the instructions. But the instructions were in Monk's hip-pocket when he dressed Winter: so Monk had found them on Hester, who no doubt had had book-cover in hand to exhibit to Winter when Winter killed her... Was it in her hand, Monk?"

"I'd find the ivory thing lying near the creature's side," Monk replied, "and I slipped it into my hip-pocket."

And she: "Surprised to find it there, were you?... So now Monk tips Winter and Hester into lake, and is ready to run for it—but doesn't: for when first whirlwind of funk has worked off, he'd say 'After all, I haven't killed anybody; and, as to baronet, I've now found instructions, won't run'; then he'd clap palm to hip for instructions—instructions gone again! in water with Winter. That night he sought Winter with light on water: didn't find. After which he vanishes. Where to? into thin air! Not in Old House—ransacked; not in country-side—Flying Squad flying, swarms of eyes wide to find: no Monk, no Winter. What first inspired me to hit on hiding-place was seeing some mists of mud surging up within water at churchyard-wall—just opposite O'Connor's grave—like toy-volcano going: when I called my boy to look, mud stopped coming. Then I observed that one of church-spades had vanished out of belfry. Then, while watching churchyard for hider of black box, I heard thumpings—scared me!—like dead making their beds, slapping feathers with palms. I, silly, didn't instantly associate thumpings with mud surging up; but meantime was certain that Monk must be lurking in some earth-hole deeply furtive: so at Leigh visited old-man Soames—dry-as-dust kind of antiquary, encyclopedia of local matters—to ask if he knew of any hole anywhere; said no, but lent me two old books and sixpenny booklet-with-views which they sell to visitors at Marchstow Castle archway: and booklet said this"—she read it from a notebook—"'While besieging Marchstow Castle, Cromwell got to know that the Cavalier Lord Beale of Bognor was in concealment at Clonnach Old House, with the collusion of Sir Studeleigh Dowdy Phipps-O'Connor: and a troop of Roundheads was despatched to capture the fugitive... The noble lord escaped to the lake, and, on being chased over it, jumped out of his boat, disappeared, and was believed to have been drowned. But three years later he reappeared...' So you see. It was this that set me experimenting on the thumpings: if I shouted 'Ho!', thumpings stopped; then I experimented on muds coming up: if I shouted, muds stopped; so now I associated thumpings and muds: someone—Monk—was excavating under graveyard, and throwing stuff dug out into lake: therefore some opening must exist in graveyard wall, invisible under water. I soon found it—hardly a foot under water—mouth of great pipe—I've been in— nearly three-foot diameter; and water enters only a short way, for pipe rises sharply, following the rise of churchyard-surface there. The other end of pipe opens among the ruins of that Old Bute Shooting-box beyond the rectory, buried away within thickness of bush: only someone knowing that it must be there could ever discover; shooting-box older still than Old House, and, on Old House being built, on sewage-pipe ceasing to be used, the fact of pipe's existence would no doubt be handed down from O'Connor father to son—fine old hiding-place for Cavaliers and the like. I am sure that she who lies above knew nothing of it—only baronet and Monk; and in there Monk could live, keep provisions—sleep in Old House, if he liked, swim thence to churchyard, dive in, and work away at excavation when all quiet up above. When I knew he'd bought hammer, screwdriver, compass at St. Anne's, two towels, I knew what for: still after book-cover: hammer to smash earthenware of pipe, compass to steer excavation toward 'Devlin Cummings Monk, A Good Man', screw-driver to open Winter's coffin, get book-cover, then come out and say 'Here's Monk, here's instructions.' One towel he'd keep in pipe, one in locked room of Old House, the key of which I had missed from bunch, and knew that he had; provisions he'd keep in both, in league perhaps with a boy or somebody to get provisions. Anyway, I got to know spots where digging was going on, his daily rate of progress; knew he'd have dug close up to grave tonight; and while we stood over grave I could make out thumpings of spade going-on under, so summoned him up, he coming out of Old Bute end of pipe, then down to us from behind apse... Day breaking, see: must hurry."

"So that was it" came now out of Massingham's puckers and fret of face, "pipe . . . instructions... Instructions about what?"

"I now know!" the doctor called out, looking upward, his palm hovering over his hair.

And Gilfillan: "'Instructions' to administer mercurochrome—evidently... But administer when?"

"Sh-h," went Alan Walpole, and wet his lips in haste, his eyes united rigidly in marriage with Agnes' eyes, as gimlets dig.

And she: "I said 'suppose' what was written on book-cover was instructions; now I say it was instructions. Monk's outcry 'if I wasn't the fool!' tells this, when we once know that he had lost book-cover, and has been burrowing so hot after it during a month: for when he hears on broadcasting night that body is to come up, and knows that poison, which he has administered, will be found—"

"When? When did he administer?" started sharp from Massingham: "you said yourself the man wasn't poisoned."

"I am coming. Somebody gave him mercurochrome, isn't that so? But Mary Skerrett saw him peacefully asleep some minutes before death—no poison in then. Then he calls out, points at medicine, falls dead; medicine has strychnine in; no strychnine in him: not poisoned by medicine. Then doctor arrives, eyes body with wise eyes: no sign of poison then. Poisoned after death, with stomach-tube. But what does Monk know about stomach-tubes? must have had instructions... On day after death Monk goes to doctor, as we know; says 'Have instructions to pray you do a favour—but secret! Promise secrecy.' Doctor promises. Then Monk: 'Favour to open vein in instep, make sure he's dead.' So doctor goes secret during dinner, opens vein—hence 'wound in foot' on exhumation; and when coroner asks doctor 'Why did you visit body a second time?' doctor won't answer: had promised Monk, who was then 'dead.' Secrecy! what about? What a bee in someone's bonnet! Ah! 'the wraith that ended the bee that harboured the flea'! Think of baronet taking Monk out to graveyard to mark-out grave with stick: you can understand a man mentioning 'I think I'd like to be buried under sycamore', but not marking out spot to an inch with stick, without definite intention. You will find that head of grave marked-out is precisely above pipe; and on grave-digging day Monk is there to see that grave is six feet deep, not five—has line to measure depth precisely, leaves just three inches depth of soil between coffin-head and pipe, so that coffin will be nigh above pipe, yet nobody spy pipe. Then, on exhumation, two saw-cuts are in coffin's bottom—not there before burial, look: for, to test it, I sawed a bit of board, and did all I could to make cuts unnoticeable—no good: cuts done, then, after burial. First, vein is opened in foot; then Monk studies book-cover, sets to work on poisoning—everything ready for him, I suppose, in some nook: mercurochrome, stomach-tube, carefully labelled; then, poison administered, Monk covers face with face-cloth, and during two days haunts body, hurries-on screwing-down, nervous lest anybody should want to raise face-cloth, and spot traces of poison! Then, during night of burial-day he enters pipe, cracks away part of pipe atop, as you'll see, knocks away the layer of soil between pipe and coffin-head, makes saw-cuts in coffin-bottom, which he had ordered undertaker to screw-on, not nail-in, unscrews two screws, removes bit of bottom... Later I noticed a boat anchored opposite grave—couldn't guess what boat was doing there—was removed two days after exhumation; now I know why there: there for dead to use in case he ever came out of hole in coffin's bottom—"

"Not Monk," she answered: "O'Connor, yes—on this point: awfully morbid. Not without cause, though. I found out something of it that night of scrivania's catching fire—snatched part of a pamphlet out of fire, and, on reading, concluded that secret 'books' in black box and those in scrivania were all on same theme. Not 'improper books'! opposite of 'improper'—'literature' of Society for the Prevention of Premature Burial, writings of that kind, torments of the damned, morbid examples, bawling calamities. Still, I could scarcely conceive that any poor soul could be so deeply affected without definite reason: that's why I flew off to Ireland, to find out, be sure: and an old dame named Marthe O'Mally told me two tales: of a fire one night in a wing of Castle Phipps—family-seat in Meath, near Navan on Boyne—and of O'Connor, seven years old, being nearly burned to death: hence, no doubt, scars of burning found on exhumation along left leg; then tale of O'Connor, nineteen years old, being nearly buried alive—catalepsy—was in hearse when he was heard howling. So you see: profound impression made on soul by these two events of youth: never ventured close to fire on coldest night—may have abhorred thought of cremation as morbidly as thought of premature burial, 'burnt child dreading fire'; kept awake through night, afraid to sleep unwatched, was watched asleep by Monk in day-time; dreaded doctor's medicine, because doctor insisted on administering soporifics for heart-disease—didn't like too much sleep! frightened of trance during sleep; gathers like miser every scrap of writing to gloat over gruesomeness of items, drug-drinker of grisliness, sick like love-sick gloating over odour of lover's clothes; then hides away writings like miser's gold, as deep as his disease of fear being his disease of secrecy—his dearest to have no least hint of those dark carks of a heart that knows its own plight and must bear its own burden of sighings, worm that dyeth not, world draped in cerements of crape, immense distemper of melancholy. At last he is 'infested with terrors'—writes 'come' to niece—can bear it alone no more: 'terrors' not of death—of premature burial; perhaps felt trance-symptoms imminent. On death-day, having presentiment perhaps, he hands 'books' in black box to O'Loughlin to burn; but those in scrivania too precious! moreover, were protected with chemicals to burn, if meddled with: so he preserves those, intrusting key of scrivania to Monk to keep. Monk's in his secret, Monk alone: for he must have an accomplice in his plot to foil the despoiler. In case the vein-opening is fallacious, Monk shall put into him mercurochrome to kill six; in case of failure there, Monk shall put a scalpel into coffin, for suicide; in case scalpel becomes displaced, Monk shall take out portion of coffin-bottom for escape through pipe-end to boat. What a to-do! And Monk does it all, caught in spirit of conspiracy, as clandestine as the master. I am sure that she who lies upstairs never scented out any of it: for, of course, Monk tucked the scalpel under corpse from undertaker's sight: so she wouldn't see scalpel on opening coffin to put-in child; and when Monk covered face with face-cloth she'd only think 'has done it for me—knows not only about baby, but knows I've poisoned.' But Monk was funky about it—all so underground, irregular, against law may-be; and now when things are coming to discovery, instructions lost: 'if I wasn't the fool!' The only thing to do now is to put back bit taken-out into coffin-bottom; saw-cuts may be noticed, but never understood: so after the broadcasting he is off out to burial-ground, taking on his way two boards from that little well near estate-workship—boards whose vanishing astonished everybody: they to support soil between broken pipe and coffin—there they lie now over pipe—he replacing soil after replacing bit in coffin-bottom, so that inviolable secret of pipe mayn't be revealed at exhumation. He probably tried, but failed, to get out scalpel—Did you try, Monk?"

"Aye, that was it... And the next day Monk's a wreck in bed—no wonder! lonesome there within kingdom of midnight-stillness under earth, heard disturbances overhead, supposed it was ghost giving signals: she above digging, little guessing anybody about, he below grey with terrors at grave's bowels going, little guessing her about: baronet cold between two fires... Never saw any sign of her, Monk?"

Monk answered "The Lord save her! I was seeing a shine flash out a minute, as I did be rowing home."

"Aye, and thought it was Sir Patrick carrying-on: it was she, Monk, busy... But not too busy to add a touch of mischief for fun, taking every chance to mystify, add intricacies: so put-in the Clark cell. Saw cells perhaps in passing through laboratory, took one—something scientific that would point to doctor's hand, yet be perplexing: the more inexplicables in the case the deeper hidden she. And always it was the poor doctor who was selected by her to be suspected of the quirks and escapades of her spurting skirts. Look at night of digging-up of black box: she cries out 'drowning!', draws him into water, leaves her sheet with him, though from doctor's hat dry, his boots nicely laced, I knew it was not he who had been the (bootless) fugitive; then she deposits revolver which she has shot at me over his door, to be noticed. Then, dreading his arrest, tries to bribe Massingham not to; and when Massingham refused bribe, I felt that doctor's life was thenceforth in danger, especially as doctor, if arrested, and pressed, could tell whereabouts of black box: for she had been listening, as I had, to doctor's talk, had heard doctor say to Massingham that he suspected whereabouts of box, and might tell me. I expected that, after hearing that, she'd remove box to other hiding-place, but she didn't—intending that I should die before knowing, I or doctor: evidently felt a reluctance to move box, no other hiding-place so sure, and may have felt a shrinking from fingering box afresh, considering contents of box. But when I sent up my name to know about box, doctor wouldn't see me—I think Mr. Gilfillan had come between; and the next day I took flight for Ireland. But the moment I was back I, or else doctor, was doomed. In going down doctor's lane to ask where box was, I had a sense that I'd never get to lane's end, turned tail, returned with Mr. Gilfillan, and observed then that someone had been lurking within hedge. I knew who had, knew why: as almost all that I've been saying I know: for though that dream-thing that I experienced never led me to any discovery, it proved the truth of discoveries—left no doubt! Doctor had tipped me the scientific hint to look for 'puns' in it, and little by little I could see it thick with puns. It goes 'This is the house that Bill built'—Bill being Lord William Billingham, who ought to have fought duel at Old House, but assassinated... 'And this is the patron, O, conchite his brows'—'patron, O, conchite' being 'Pat O'Connor' clear enough, conchite meaning fossilized—with fixed-idea of premature burial... 'That admonished the priest "be true to your vows"—'priest' being Monk... 'That proffered the sip'—sip of poison... 'That solaced the lip, That published the faith—'lip' shouted out after seeing Foy, 'Foy' meaning faith... 'That failed, not its wraith'—Foy failed to poison, but her wraith didn't fail... 'Wraith ended the bee' (in baronet's bonnet), That harboured the flea'—harboured thought of mercury that's nimble like flea, 'volatile Hermes.'.. 'Flea that bit the wight'—bit White-Deighton... 'That rued the night'—poor Doctor!—'That drew down on the house That Bill built': it's all there. So I knew: and when Mr. Gilfillan and I got to doctor's house, and no doctor—gone in consequence of a note just got—I knew he'd gone to be shot. I managed to hunt him down to Old House, found him shot in that back chapel, and here, see, is the note which had decoyed him: 'I am imprisoned in the Old House, St. Rich Chapel. The key is in the door outside. I am throwing this to Pete Greet in a boat. Agnes Heygate'—the writing nothing like mine, but, then, doctor did not know my writing, and would come, she waiting in chapel behind sacrarium probably, and shot as he came, then waited for it to become dimmer outside for her rush home. When I arrived, and called doctor in 'Traitor's Gate', she decided upon my dying, too, I knowing too much; but the instant I flashed light into chapel and sighted doctor prostrate under me, I slammed door, sensing her there behind high-altar; then in three minutes I opened door slow, slow, funky as mouse—rayless now in there—no breath but doctor's: and on my face outside I passed arm darkly in, found scalp-wound flowing, found note from 'me' in pocket, took note; then, in case I might never reach Massingham and mob in front, I made in the dark what I meant to be three crosses on leaf of notebook, and put leaf into doctor's pocket for comfort, as one says to baby 'never mind, I kiss place, make it well'; then pushed door wide open for mob to see; then was off for mob, switching-on flash in dismal corridor. But I spotted a door a bit open to my left—door that had been closed before: so, conjecturing that she had slipped through little portal at back of sacrarium, and was waiting inside this door before me to do me, I stopped short, switching-off, picked up a shred of rotted panel, fastened pocket-lamp to panel's end with handkerchief, then switched-on, and, keeping panel out at arm's-length, darted. Bang!—nothing hit—but she was out quick at me—another bang—felt cheek torn. Hadn't had presence of mind to switch-off light, but now did, just catching sight of six steps in time, or I should have been down them—"

"Didn't fall at all?" Gilfillan put in: "the blood-spots stopped after the steps."

"No, didn't fall," she answered: "put handkerchief to cheek, that's why... So on to my right in dark, she after like death with scythe, then to my right afresh round that inner courtyard, skedaddled into a room, cat-footed, to cringe two, three minutes, expecting doom: she had probably lost me, and was awaiting sound. But I couldn't bear suspense, out I dashed—toward castle-back, certain that Massingham and mob, having heard shots, would spurt in and spot doctor—it was Number One now for me, look. I got to top of back-stair, but now again bang, two more as I flew down dim, screaming—it was only screw of stair saved me. Then a skip into one of two boats at portal-steps, and row, boatman, row, it was. Didn't row to landing-stage, afraid she might chase that way, rowed south away, hiding in lake's haze, to south side of lake: hid there under willow... Presently felt pretty sickified, shivery, rushed to sit in stern, was sick leaning over transom; then sat still, cheek dripping like pig; mist thickish, but moon now beginning to soar. And now I noticed that blood from cheek, as I lay a sluttish bundle there, was dripping upon one spot of tiller—none dripping upon seat. Tiller steady, then? not swinging a little?—though water out yonder always wobbly because of outlet-waters of Fishponds washing swift in. Something, then, jamming rudder? and it flashed upon me—black box: for this was the boat in which she had been when she hid box—aye, architect of artifices, pretty thing, larky heart. On dipping arm into water, I felt a cord resting on lower staple, cord pressed by lower pintle upon stern-post: so I pretty soon had rudder out, box up. Box hardly nice, slimy, camphor compounded with other odour: this was what I and diving-boy sniffed that morning when boys were diving from boat for box... So now I cleaned blood from tiller with petticoat, shipped rudder afresh—"

"Aye, hands fluttery," she answered... "Then I was off with box up to Balne's orchard, in which, all lonely, I opened box—key sticking in box—saw baby and boot of baronet, baby three months old, crinkly hair, deep asleep in heaven, the dear. So now I made a hole in ground, buried, covered up warily. But I knew she'd find out that night that I had found box—"

"Found out within an hour"—from Massingham, offended at the memory of it—"swam from The Old House, as I see now, got home, then joined the lot of us, cool as a cucumber—went with us upon the water to look for you. When you had run down the back-stair, she must have gone back and put the emptied revolver by the doctor's hand—daredevil! with the mob already in the house—"

"Aye"—with half-a-laugh from Agnes—"I fancied she would—cooler than cucumber... Now, look: I found 'Boulogne' on a price-ticket hemmed inside baby's robe: so nurse-girl would be Bolognese; moreover, one day when Marie Moran had taken a mulatto-man from Clonnach to railway-station, I had got into her motor coming back, and had gathered from Marie that, at baronet's summons to come home, her mistress had stayed a day at Boulogne— on baby-business may-be: and mistress would know that I knew that word 'Boulogne.' So, box buried, I was gone like a longdog for station to catch 7.25 up-train: for now, baby discovered by me, baby's mother would very likely fly to tie up nurse-girl's tongue, which I needed to complete evidence—keenly needed, since Massingham was standing on qui vive to seize doctor; and I went secret, to keep Massingham preoccupied with fresh job of seeking me or my body, and keep him off doctor meantime. As to nurse-girl, it was obvious that she, honest simple thing, not aware yet that baby had been killed, might well blurt out facts to me on learning of killing: so it was a case of racing between mother and me to tug at girl's will—if I did not get killed quick in the attempt. But I, featherhead, didn't think of passport: passport kept me two days in London—getting photo taken! Meantime, I interviewed in Bayswater a Lady Blickling, with whom niece had been in Sicily when uncle summoned her home. Then for Folkestone, thinking myself years late; and, after sending wires to you three friends to quiet anxiety at last, was off for Boulogne, where it was walk, walk, all Wednesday, getting at 'girl who nursed brown baby': I learned girl's name, Madeleine Gaude, lately gone to aunt's farm at St. Martin, seven kilometres out. I, too tired for that night, thought I might as well watch passengers coming by next boat—had heavy veil and new dress—so watched from the dark at corner of douane; yes, and there she came stepping as a gentleman—I should never have recognised! but recognised finger-nails: Prince Charming stepping princely—I losing poor heart, already lost! cane, hat cocked; though I could suspect shape of revolver in jacket-pocket. It was this coming as a man that had delayed her—had had to get man's passport, and must have guessed that I, too, would be delayed by getting passport. And now she and I were on equal terms: for I, with a day's start, had had to spend half-day in unearthing what she already knew in regard to nurse-girl. I managed to shadow her to hotel—wary's the word—then what in the world to do didn't know: for, if I first went to girl, she might turn up, catch me in act; if I let her go first, she might hurry girl well away, or rig girl's will against my influence. And I had less than ten minutes to think: for then she issues out of hotel, gay, flicking leg with stick. She walked to all-night chemist; and I, hiding under dark archway, spied her step out, taking out of its wrapping, to look-at, a bottle that had skull-and-cross-bones stamped bold on it, as foreign chemists' poison-bottles have. Now panic took me—woe to the vanquished it was: death for herself failing death for me. So I started to shadow her back to hotel, deciding to interview her there, where she could hardly shoot at sight, tell her 'innocent'; but, a late cab passing, she was in and away, I dashing after, pitching voice shrill like cock's throttle wawling, calling 'You're innocent!' No sign of her hearing, however; and no cabs about: so on I trotted after, weary, unwilling that she should have it all her own way with girl, hoping for chance to explain her 'innocence' to her before she could wholly get girl from me: then I might both get girl and undo suicide-intent. Six miles to St. Martin: but two miles out I got a lift in charrotin a little; then on afoot, road lonesome, moonlight dull, till I spotted cab ahead humming back toward Boulogne, and I dodged into bush to watch—her cab—empty—she waiting ahead, then, to have me: so I said 'No, don't like that', started flying back, eyes in back of my head! and had hardly fled fifty yards when I saw her, limber boy, darting soft, fast, after me. Quick I lost my head, white-livered as rabbit, twisted distracted round to rush toward her, shrieking in passion 'You're innocent!'—ran perhaps three yards toward her when, my right eye chancing to catch sight of a stile, I did a skedaddle for it, and was half-over when—bang! Now, this was her eighth bullet aimed at me, including two in churchyard-murk, and I not much hurt: so Law of Probability was all dead against me now—one or two more must do me in: so I went rushing through stubble-field, shrieking 'You're innocent!', keeping rabbit-eye leering back at stile; and the instant she reached stile, arm stretched to fire, smartly I fell on face: bang, as I fell. Only one bang now; and she did not come to make sure that I was knocked out—causing me to wonder, until a tramping from the road reached my ears: a company of pioupious marching to barracks in Boulogne, going now 'at the double': they must have heard gunshots, spurted ahead, and she had fled before them. Never came back—I perhaps dead; and thereabouts in another field I waited under a beech-tree, shivering, three hours; then the tramp back to Boulogne, to knock up hotel, and throw myself weeping sore upon my bed, with as weary and painful bones as ever had patient Job... Didn't wake until afternoon, then found she'd gone back to England: Boulogne too hot for her in view of pioupious' evidence—if I was dead. So now—Thursday afternoon—I taxied out to St. Martin, and found she hadn't gone to girl's farm at all—useless to go, if I was dead; if not dead, herself to die—had left it now, poor dear, on knees of gods. But girl wasn't there—gone to visit sister at Agincourt, expected back 'Friday or Saturday': in fact, I didn't see her until Sunday: that's why I didn't come on Saturday, yet couldn't wire 'not coming.' On Sunday girl, Madeleine Gaude—here's her address—told me all: when her mother, baby's nurse, had died, girl had wired to Sicily 'I can't nurse'—this wire being the second that came to baby's mother that day, the other being from O'Connor summoning to Clonnach; and, on arrival of this second wire, she quickly left Sicily—so Lady Blickling told me—then at Boulogne instructed Madeleine Gaude about bringing baby, powder on face, to England... Anyway, after my vain journey to St. Martin on the Thursday I hurried back to Boulogne, intending to wire her both at Clonnach and London—but too late to wire! and next—Friday—morning I found that I couldn't remember number of O'Connor's London-house. So I wired only to Clonnach 'O'Connor poisoned after death, nobody's fault, I can prove.' I felt sure she would have it... But she stayed Friday in London, and housekeeper told me tonight that wire, on arriving, wasn't at once posted to London, since Miss O'Connor was expected at Clonnach: so while she was coming to Clonnach on Saturday, wire was in post for London. That's why she... when I sprang upon her sight, alive, this night... that's why... Oh, my, not my fault. And look—not an atom of malice in her, look; if little love, no ill-will: easy for her to have laid me low before laying herself; but, seeing herself beaten by fate, no evil mind in her—smiles—dies—oh, my..."

Agnes' fingers covered her lids... until, chuckling a little hysterically, she sprang up to the window of the six coats-of-arms, where, with a sniffle, she remarked "Sun's come, see."

Chapter XXX
DAY-TIME

SILENT they sat, their eyes following after her as by habit, all but the doctor's, who sat still, his lids lowered: until Monk, coming up out of depths, stood up, saying "I will be bringing you breakfast," and was stepping away with a heavy head when Agnes exclaimed "I am off for a walk in it!"

Upon which "Can I come?" sprang from Alan Walpole; "Can I come?" sprang from Gilfillan; and she, with a sense of sex, induced to smile in a humour of sex, replied "Why, yes."

"That is so, Sir" Massingham answered, standing up: "but, if you will hold yourself in readiness to come before the Marchstow magistrate at ten o'clock, that'll do for me. You will then be remanded on bail for formal evidence to be drawn-up, and then, I think, acquitted... I am only sorry, Sir, that I was led to take—"

"Do not mention it"—the doctor bowed; and added "So that I also, it seems, may join in this walk?—if Miss Heygate consents?"

On which she bent her neck his way, and after her drew the three out, as when a butcher-boy's tray of joints draws a train of dogs, with the four springing up to go O'Connor's dog, Scout, dislocating his joints for joyance at her caress, and at all that freshness of the jaunt: which freshness, and that broadness of the morning's heavenly hall, soon brought them all to cast off the mood of the dark's ordeal, within which, like Life's pilgrims of the Night, they had struggled through much ruggedness of ignorance, mugginess of enigmas, many an error, tremors of dismay, and ever a sense of Death—of that dead biding upstairs abed, her feet united like the diver's feet when he sweeps steep from some peak in the skies, then, stretched at rest, is lying drenched in the peace of the deep-sea, while of his deed each wind whispers "it is finished"; and Agnes, glancing aloft, laughed in her heart, saying "Talk of halls! if we were miles tall, we'd be no bigger—would still be tiny mites: and this bit about us is only a little, little bit of it."

On which Gilfillan—the cynic!—said "'This inverted bowl we call the sky, whereunder crawling, cooped, we live and die.'.."

But she: "Now, how silly. Let's hope that it was the translator, not old Omar himself, who was such a wretched poet. 'Cooped' indeed. Not Agnes of the hills! not the wild ass's colt! Fling your voice into its hollow, shout, howl at its bounds, see if you will fill its void with the bosh of your voice, or abolish its bounds with the shout of your howling. Gawin Douglas, now: he, yes: 'When fresh Aurore, of mighty Tithone spouse, unshut the windows of her large hall'—that's poetry: naif, expressive, and heartfelt."

"Yes, but I like my three better," she answered: "'simple' is needless with 'sensuous': for sensuous is simple."

"'Simple' has different meanings," Gilfillan remarked: "there is Simple Simon—like little old me. You won that bet, Agnes."

And now he, so low that Alan at her other shoulder could not catch it: "Does that mean that we are as we were? nothing changed? Say yes!"

At which her eyes went shy; "Oh, well," she sighed; then: "There, look, is Shekinah, the Shining Presence: loveliest of the sights that our eyes are allowed to see"—meaning the sun's disc so bedimmed by mistiness within a white sky, that the eye could abide the sight of its brightness—milk-white rose of light blooming within a nimbus of luminousness, as the rose throws-off a corona of aroma, and there is more corona of aroma than rose—that white sky moving slow, blown by breezes out of the east now, pretty cold, brindling with chills the skin of the road-pools, which moped now toward freezing, as sick fowls mope with lid-skins filming their eyes, and from time to time they frill, shivering, dreaming dreams of frigid regions. For now the army of Autumn was all in retreat through stark regions, beshone as by the flamboyance flung from some Moscow's combustion: that group of aspens beyond Old Bute frog-pond was all a rattling of gold-coins gone scrappy, like the profligate's galore of guldens and gold-gowns gone frowy now, on the road to ruin; a row of elms stood mildewed to tinges of yellowness such as betuft the beards of Russians reaching the drear years; and, distant beyond mists, forests of beeches seemed flocks of sheep of a brownish fleece browsing about some mountain's bum. But Agnes, like the doctor, went with bare head, scantily clad, her face held-up affectionately to the blessed Presence inherent in the breezes, beside her being Walpole and Gilfillan, while the doctor, involved in himself, walked behind, shy of the presence of the other men, shy of the commonness of being there to see to his own interests, he who considered it unintelligent to love others less than himself. So he was out of earshot when Agnes gaily exclaimed "Look at him, the donkey! browsing among the cows... Ah, donkeys! never Titania loved her one as I love 'em all! There! he brays! he brays! Now! every hair braying. Ah! the farce of that thing!—God's wantonest laugh... There now: the bull goes and mutters something to that cow... and I know exactly what he's saying: says 'Can you account for that brute going off into those enthusiasms like an alarm-clock? Each time the thing does it I feel half-inclined to stick a horn into him.' And now, see, cow's answering: says 'Oh, well, live and let live, we all have our peculiarities.'"

Upon which Walpole and Gilfillan laughed: for in spite of a kind of commonness and democracy which was all incorporate with that ladyship of her nature, her every utterance and procedure was seen by them in such a moonshine as the dames of fable move in; but heartiest Walpole laughed: for Gilfillan at this time had an evil eye, since she seemed to be speaking oftener, sweeter, to Walpole than to him.

And so, walking sharp, always upward, toward The Chase, she passed by country-houses, pleasure-parties of crows in meadows, farms, by a ditcher clipping hedges, who heartily waved at her, betwixt hills where firs herded, alert like conclaves of foxes' ears cocked, on to a region of petrol-splashes shed over the road, where she drew up, saying "I can hardly go past them! my goodness! gores of Gabriels and Satans minglemangled in battle—white hairs of Isaiah flying wild...," in saying which, she was conscious of the doctor joining them, walking on beyond, involved in himself, not saying anything; and presently afresh she stood to dote over petrol-splashes, saying "My goodness! glances of angel-girls ogling, flirting—graces of fern-sprigs purpling... Lovely the soul of what designed and dyed them"; but then went quickly on—so quick, that Gilfillan was presently left fifty feet in the rear, while Walpole, sticking to her, said "You will be going away now"—even as a leaf from a poplar-tree trickled down like a single tear upon him, ominously.

And now she looked at him with tenderness to say "Boy, you never knew that I got engaged to Glinten Gilfillan?"

On this his face convulsed on a sudden to a cry-cry expression; but quickly he lived it down; then, broken-winged, replied "No, didn't know."

"Thanks, thanks... Goodbye—I think I'll go this way"—fleeing left into a lane that entered the road there, both left and right.

But she, one of her quick tears now twinkling between her lids, tripped fifteen yards after him, to say prayingly "No, don't take it—Kiss me!"

And he kissed her impetuously in a passion of parting, as the dead at the last are kissed—she aware that Gilfillan at the lane's end was seeing; and she said "Look now: at our next reincarnation you and I become one—there, consider yourself loved, that's a promise. P'raps you'll be a year or two older than I then. So engage me now to you; slip this ring upon my finger"—a ring which she had slipped off in tripping to him, which she now privily passed to his palm, then openly presented her finger to be ringed; and Walpole, his gullet gulping down a gob of bitterness, did as he was bid, kissed her finger quickly, fled on his way.

To Gilfillan those fleeing feet seemed winged with elation, he conceiving that what he had witnessed was an engagement for the present incarnation; and when Agnes, concealing her hand that had the ring, reached him, he laughed harshly, remarking "Say, you walk too fast for me: I'll be getting back."

She stood averted, grave-faced; said "All right... But no need to be cross, Glinten. We both know that we are fond of each other, but they won't allow me to marry a crowd. Be sorry for me, not cross."

"I am sorry for the crowd," he said, "I being in it. But there isn't any use fooling around"—moving off: "so long! As for that cheque, see here, you'll lose your time tearing it up: the jack's not mine, and I sha'n't ever touch it."

"Right!" he cried, now going down the lane to the right, she gazing with regretful eyes after; until, her interest suddenly shifting to the road, she stood looking at White-Deighton ahead, keeping her left eye winked at him with the pistol-aimer's speculation, meaning "Now to do a deal with you."

Now she walked fast, called "Doctor!," joined him; and when he asked "But the others?" she answered "I walk too fast for Mr. Gilfillan; and Alan, poor boy, is gone because he knows that I was engaged to Glinten Gilfillan."

She, her eyes down, smiled in herself at the human nature in his dualness; then: "'Was', I said. A bet it was. When you assured me that O'Connor was not poisoned, I bet: if he was, I to give myself to Glinten. But, as he was not—O! hark at them (some ducks): don't quite like the dog, look—they observe everything perfectly with that steady circle of eye presiding in the side of their head"—a crowd of ducks squatted, enjoying the morning on the margin of a pond opposite a farm-house: which crowd, mistrustful of Scout coming, commenced to mutter a wobbling of melodies, a mixed multitude of dulcimer-wimplings, quick as when their skimpy tails quake "à la queue leu-leu," as when once I touched a shoehorn, and it wobbled quick, quicker, to its stoppage, or when once I agitated matches in a majolica box; and Agnes said "Hark at it: very sound of running water..."

And she: "Perhaps all animals' sounds are imitations of sounds in the elements they inhabit."

Again he started, with "Perhaps! I will—think of it. Doves, for instance... The 'Holy Spirit' of Christianity is a personification of the air—'spirit' being 'breath', air, wind; and this 'Holy Wind', which 'mightily rushes', is, like the Astaroth of Babylon, associated with the dove, since the dove's cooing resembles winds fuming through tubes—as ducks may imitate the warbling of water... Ah, now, the dog spoils it": for now Scout bounded toward those wise side-eyes watching, upon which the mob of bosom-plumages plunged soft to push the pond, as ships pitch soft in, launched down slidingways; and on the water the side-eyes watched.

But in a moment more the hound found other business, seeing a little donkey browsing out of bounds by the roadside: and immediately he was booming at her heels, rebuking her, she fleeing up the hill at a languid trot with a sort of tangle waving in the gait of her legs; but after some yards of it she, running ever, bent her neck round to utter aloud some phrase of protest to her mentor; whereupon Agnes exclaimed "There now! Did ever Balaam's ass speak plainer? I know exactly what she said: said T have reasons for being here! and, anyway, what business is it of yours?'"

And the doctor: "Balaam's ass, too, was doubtless a she: hence its expressiveness... How many words have you spoken during the night! and your tongue still as fresh as a bell's."

"Yes, tell us about her," she said. "Shall we sit a little? You must be tired"—they being now on The Chase: so they seated themselves on a mass of rock in bracken, solitary but for two colts browsing, the donkey, a council of crows; and he now said "Undoubtedly you made last night a splendid display of intellectuality—in fact, whatever you do has a tendency to seem to me eminently accomplished in some atmosphere of which the oxygen is ozone; still, I must not let myself think that you did well to meddle in this O'Connor matter: it was no more your business than the donkey's outing was Scout's. A young life has been cut short—"

He bowed. "True: you have greatly rescued me... Still, private trifles are not our business. Nothing matters to any life, fly or star-lord, except one thing—pleasure; and this is pleasure, to the nerve's quick,—to love God, whose soul's name is Lovable and Well-Beloved; to work for a world. Now, nurses are in a position to do this—"

"No, not everybody—a few scientists, writers, thinkers, publishers, postmen—nurses, too. The idea 'the world' is a new idea—"

"Yes, yes," he answered, "but his 'world' was a village—in tone, if not quite in size. He died to save Tom and Dick, 'cleansed' the leper Tom, instead of toiling to discover that hydnocarpus oil cleanses all lepers—his 'world' being like his 'heaven', in which there is joy among the lords of Taurus in respect of one Tom that repents"—a chuckle flushed him pinkish, dissipating the stillness of that gaze of his, which seemed engaged on seeing things within mists, she smiling at him, enjoying the uncommon sight of his chuckling; until he continued: "But the world for which scientists live and die is Tomless: for the earth they die, and the sun, that Life, a product of the sun, may triumph. This is religion; and the idea religion never entered an ancient's head: he dreamt of resurrections, Paradises, Elysiums, Nirvanas, hoped for other joys than just the joy of living to give to God. To do this is new—an evolution. The lowest animals and plants lived solely for themselves; monkeys have come to live for themselves, a family, 'neighbours': and so still the mass of men. Men are made up mainly of 'employers' and 'employed', the employer working for himself, the employed for himself and his employer; and, if I said to one such 'It is apish to work for oneself or another, to taste pleasure you should work for a world', he would say 'How? What can I do?', nor should I be able to tell him. In his vague hunger to serve God, he comforts himself, meantime, with the notion that being 'good' to his neighbour is religious; but, then, this is absurd: his neighbours are shadows which pass; to serve a shadow is not to serve The Eternal. And social evolution consists in this—the turning-up of more and more persons into a position to work for a world until all are evolved, as nurses are—Forgive me—"

For Agnes had let the back of her hand touch his. She, not there to be chidden, was restless, bent to pick a sprig of heather, nibbled a blade of grass; and when, at her touch, he said "forgive me," she flustered guiltily, coming out with "But isn't nursing done for Tom and Dick, for shadows?"

"No," he said, seeing what he said within the thick of the heather: "doing it to shadows is not doing it for shadows. Your hospital 'beds' are not Tom O'Connors—have no names for you—are spray-drops tossed your way from the Niagara of God... Yesterday I read in a paper of a fellow who has tricked money from spinster ladies, and a 'judge' said to him 'I shall punish you heavily: you are a pest to society'; but the parrot man! who probably never had a thought of his own, except when he was a baby, before his brain was broken by an 'education' that o'iseducated him, impelling him to remember, hypnotising his ability to think. The trickster was, of course, no 'pest to society'—was a pest to some spinsters. Each spinster is like one of the peas in a pail, each pea being two things—a uniqueness, and a member of society, like many; if an atom of something on one pea becomes shifted to another, the uniqueness of these two is changed: but nothing has happened to the society. Now, it was a spinster, as a uniqueness, that the trickster, as a uniqueness, tricked; he would have tricked her in the Sahara: so that the trouble was no business of society, of the villager 'judge.' If a fishmonger, having some foul fish, thinks 'I hate that Tom O'Connor: I will give him foul fish, to kill him', there is nothing amiss with society here: it is a private trifle between two uniquenesses; if, however, the fishmonger, not as a uniqueness, but as a member of society, sells stale fish to one of the public, a member of society, ah! here is pest, matricide, high treason, the infinite infamy; and here all is amiss with society: for that fishmonger, as a member of society, is not unique, is like many in mood and doing: his uncleanness shows that a nation, lusting for strange flesh, has lain with some beast, and has brought forth a thing whose claws rend her breasts. Yes, monstrous is this contrary: when he who ought to have worked for Her against himself, to be blessed, works against Her for himself, and is accursed. And things are similarly ill with society when a nurse flings aside nursing in order to solve some mystery of Tom O'Connor, with no consciousness in her, in society, that she is sinning in deserting world-service for a private trifle. This, then, is the law as to nursing."

She sighed "Oh, well"—her eyes on her lap—"I am catching it. But you preach to the converted; and, in fact, I did not desert nursing to come here." Then, eyeing aside at him: "How about deserting nursing to be a wife?"

"To be a wife is a private trifle," he replied; "but, then, wifehood implies motherhood, which, of course, is world-service."

"Is that it?... 'mother.'.. aye. I am thinking of deserting nursing, not for motherhood, but for research-work."

"Well said!—best of all." He added "I will initiate you." And she, looking surprised: "You will? When?"

"When"—flushing pinkish—"we are married." Low, eyes on lap, she muttered "Oh, you don't still want that same thing."

She sighed. "Oh, my! temptation of St. Anthony... I have the habit of being a maid, and enjoy the tautness... Well, never mind, better buckle under, I suppose... You know why? Because I have a love for old Clonnach, and now you own Clonnach."

His eyes shot to the skies, a light of joy in them; then, tapping her hand: "That statement contains two untruths: I do not own Clonnach—except the houses—since that is unintelligent to imagine that a man 'owns' land: we will rent the Clonnach-lands from our nation, which will now be said to 'own' it. Moreover it is untrue that you marry me because I 'own' Clonnach... How about those crosses on the leaf that you put into my pocket?... Ah! those three crosses"—he sighed—"how they infected my veins with flames!"

She whispered. "They did? Poor mortal man. But they were only meant to remind you of Jesus and the two thieves."

"Well, I don't know... So you think that I love you? A mass of mathematics? How much do you imagine that I love you? Tell."

Now she turned urgently to him, earnest now, with yearning on her lids. "Yes, dear, but you don't know how much: oh, believe me"—pleading—"you don't know...": and now with country-wench roughness she suddenly had him wrapped, cuddled, pouring her soul through the split of his lips—until with rough suddenness her arms abandoned the embrace; and panting now she sat apart, dumb, ashamed of her outbreak, her breasts—inflamed, roused, fretful—rowing her as two oarsmen pull, throw, pull again, together.

But her eyes, lowered, chanced to catch sight of her wrist-watch, and now she was springing up, crying "My goodness, nine o'clock! the court!," and at once they were up and away... down the road...

* * * * *

That the house-steward, Monk, had occasion to break the pipe in two places cannot but be regarded by antiquaries as perhaps the most regrettable part of the O'Connor matter... The date of the outfall-end cannot be later than 1550, while the Old Bute end may be thirty years earlier: for the fact of its having been laid at two different periods is established, the pipes near the outfall being in 4ft. lengths, and the joints are formed by sockets into which the straight end of a next pipe fits loosely, this being wedged in position by a little gasket, the remaining space being filled with cement; but toward Old Bute the pipes are in 5ft. 3in. lengths, made with some bituminous substance in the sockets and round the spigots, the joints being made by simply pushing one into the other. Moreover, the glazed stone-ware of the pipes (the term 'earthenware' used of it by most persons is, of course, unlearned) is of different colours, being of a deeper brown toward Old Bute... That this Old Bute orifice had been deliberately camouflaged seems probable, the east kitchen-wall is built so close up to the cliff-side from which the pipe looks; and, the space between being thickly bushed, it is not strange that no ordinary person ever saw the orifice; but that such as I, searching for such things, never unearthed it, is somewhat disconcerting... I have lately enjoyed the pleasure of being accompanied in an examination of the pipe by Dr. White-Deighton, who, in spite of the academical honours poured upon his head since the reponing of his name on the Medical Register, remains the simple country-doctor of The Three Villages, differing in nothing from his usual self, except in respect of his residence—Clonnach being said to be especially liked by that special lady, his wife: and he, after twenty minutes with me at Old Bute, became as convinced as I am that the pipe, at some time, had other uses than just sewerage or drainage... I find its gradient to be no less, on an average, than 7in. in 10ft., the whole lying on a bed of concrete 9in. thick, bunched up at the sides, the concrete consisting, I gather, of 60 parts of sand and gravel to 1 of cement... As to its mere dimensions, not many Roman pipes... (Here follows a disquisition on pipes—Roman, Mediaeval, Modern—pipes round, oval—of burnt clay—main-drain pipes, conduits, soil-pipes, waste-pipes, sinks, closets, manholes, traps, etc.).

THE END

M.P. SHIEL

THE BLACK BOX

ABOUT THIS BOOK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I DEATH

Chapter II DREADFUL DEATH

Chapter III SEEKERS

Chapter IV THE THREE VILLAGES

Chapter V THE URN

Chapter VI BANSHEE

Chapter VII THE DOCTOR

Chapter VIII "MURDER NOT A SIN"

Chapter IX PUBLIC ANALYST

Chapter X THE BODY

Chapter XI A GLOVE

Chapter XII FOOT-PRINTS

Chapter XIII IN THE GRAVE

Chapter XIV POISON

Chapter XV THE BLACK BOX

Chapter XVI THE OLD HOUSE

Chapter XVII NIGHT-INTERVIEW

Chapter XVIII THE FUGITIVE PURSUED

Chapter XIX AFTERNOON BREEZES

Chapter XX THE DEAD

Chapter XXI THE BLACK BOX

Chapter XXII THE BOX OBSTINATE

Chapter XXIII WARRANT OF ARREST

Chapter XXIV THE TRUTH-SEEKERS

Chapter XXV GUNFIRE

Chapter XXVI THE VANISHED HAND

Chapter XXVII OUTCOME

Chapter XXVIII CATASTROPHE

Chapter XXIX NIGHT-TIME

Chapter XXX DAY-TIME